Maggie Gallagher: Don't give up marriage fight!

Most people do not want gay marriage. However, there is pressure from the trendies to make people conform to every bit of nonsensical PC BS.
On the whole, people know that deep down gay marriage is wrong. Some folks don't care, but they should.

Wow, its good to hear Maggie making strong sense.

She doesn't oppose "any legal recognition whatsoever for same sex couples", does she? Well, perhaps she'd be willing to bargain on that if the other side were willing to bargain too.

Rod, I didn't realize you had advocated giving up on marriage and "retreating" to religious protections of some sort. I don't care about religious protections, I'm not religious. I care about posterity and equality and ethical and responsible government, so your bargain is useless to me, and to millions of others, I suspect.

Honest question: Can the law at once allow gay marriage, and still discriminate in favor of married heterosexual couples when it comes to adoption?

How does this work in states with gay marriage?

Can adoption agencies posit that children are best served with a mom and dad, and so discriminate in favor of heteromarried couples when making placements?

Maggie's problem is obvious from her second paragraph. She sees this as an adversarial challenge to her moral worldview. In reality, SSA couples want to bypass the dozens of legal restrictions that touch on money, medicine, household decision-making, parenting, etc. and just live their lives as faithfully as possible.

She and others imagine themselves in prison for opposing this. I just think y'all are drinking too much Kool-Aid. You continue to see the Culture War as an adversarial enterprise. Your solution lies in the Enlightenment approach: out-rationalize the opposition, using high decibel levels as needed.

My prediction is that if the Right is marginalized on this issue, it won't be because you're waving the Banner of Truth. Archbishop Chaput has your number: too many of you people are just plain mean. Personally, I'd prefer you come to your senses rather than get rolled.

Of course there's no such thing as "traditional marriage." Maggie doesn't want to go back to parental matchmaking, wives without property rights, or other traditional pre-Romantic notions of OSU's. Not to mention the Old Testament attitude of one man-several women (including servants if you can get them). And I'm sure she'd prefer to ignore the practice of serial polygamy her Republican confreres seem to enjoy.

Somehow the Judeo-Christian family survived the transition from the patriarchs. (Just imagine the Issues Isaac had!)

Maggie doesn't have time for pessimism (read: being sensible) because the war and the economy have rolled the Republican brand. All they have left is to squeeze the rank-and-file religious conservatives for every donation dollar they can get. Meanwhile, I have to admit this is a very entertaining sideshow watching conservatives circle the drain.

A few thoughts on some things La Maggie had to say...

People are flocking to the National Organization for Marriage (www.nationformarriage.org), not because we try to scare them about how bad things are going to be--but because we offer them a chance to come together with other people of all races, creeds and colors to stand up for a core and timeless good.

This is complete and utter 100% BS. Look at that ad you posted, Rod! What's with the scary storm clouds? What's with all the "storm is coming" wording? What's with all the harping on how teh gheyz are coming for your children? That entire ad was nothing but a fear tactic. That ad is not a sunny, optimistic message about a "core and timeless good"; it's nothing but fear, pure and simple.

Public opinion hasn't changed much at all. What's changed is the punishment the gay marriage movement is inflicting on dissenters, which is narrowing the circle of people willing to speak. This is a very powerful movement, no question. Nobody understands that better than I do.

Nate Silver at 538.com already called out the National Review on this one. Basically, if you look at actual poll numbers, or even the results of the ballot propositions, support not just for civil unions but for gay marriage itself has been growing pretty steadily.

I'll cut La Maggie some slack here and assume that she's just listening to the conservative echo chamber and not doing any research, so this probably is just laziness and misinformation she's picked up, not an outright lie.

There is no offer on the table for compromise at this point.

This is now true, as far as it goes. But it completely overlooks the question of why it's true.

There was in fact a compromise position on the table ten years ago or even more recently (civil unions with some or all of the privileges of marriage) and it was the trads who rejected it and adopted a scorched earth policy. Trads have consistently opposed making even the slightest compromise on things that are pretty uncontroversial (like hospital visitation), so you if now appear to be bigots who are driven by hatred of homosexuals, you have only yourselves to blame.

Despair is gay marriage advocates' prime message point.

The biggest load of BS in the whole piece. Who's running a campaign based on fear here? Who's saying (in this very article!) that civilization is DOOMED if teh gheyz are allowed to marry? If there was ever a bigger peddler of despair than La Maggie, I've never read them.

As I've spelled out repeatedly, the entire marriage debate from our perspective is about strengthening relationships, encouraging responsibility and fostering commitment. If that's despair, then La Maggie is even more twisted and confused than I thought.

True enough, kids need a mom and dad. But the argument that SSM will kill the traditional family went out the window when good Christians decided it was just fine to throw in a stepdad, a couple of stepmoms and perhaps dad's new girlfriend. There are likely worse things in the world than a kid having two moms.

And I say this as someone who believes homosexuality is sinful. So is divorce/remarriage, in most circumstances, but you'll be hard pressed to find a conservative Christian speaking out against second marriages.

I sympathize with a lot of what Maggie says. For one, that we who oppose SSM need to build coalitions in blue states. As I've said on this blog before, there are a significant number of Dems (such as Yours Truly) who oppose SSM, and a smart organizer can build coalitions with them.

But I am concerned that we avoid making the mistake that the pro-life movement made: putting forward unsympathetic spokespersons. As a pro-lifer, I think our side lost the legal and political battle in part because we let Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Randall Terry, George Bush and their ilk be our "leaders." They were shrill and shallow and failed to take a consistently pro-life position across the board. Can Ms. Gallagher and the other folks currently taking leadership positions in the pro-traditional marriage movement step up to the challenge?

Rod wrote: "she believes that there are massive numbers of voters waiting to be activated if only they knew the stakes in this fight."

True. The problem is, all of those voters are over 60 years old.

Zach Treed wrote something that is truly astounding:

Absolutely true. No-fault divorce slips under the radar because it seems merely ominous compared with the clear and present mauling being meted out by the gay-"marriage" movement. The reality is that we're too busy fending off a school of piranhas to notice that Godzilla has slipped into the lagoon and is quietly eating everything in his path.

Oh come on...no fault divorce has been out there for almost forty freaking years, but it's the fault of the gays that it hasn't been addressed?

Honestly...what exactly are you smoking over there? What kind of nasty hallucinogen does it take to turn homosexuals into the scapegoats for what you've done for marriage?

*yawn*

The blog has gone "All Gay...All The Time".

Panic. Existential values of Western Civilization destroyed. And, don't forget; people might say Bad Things about Social Conservatives and call them bigots or intolerant.

I suspect Rod feels much like a bewildered columnist at The Village Voice in 1981, when everything that he knew had to be true about social policy, the military and the role of government was thrown out by the voters.

I'm sure he would have continued "fighting the good fight", and campaigned for Mondale, and only to see his last hope of vindication go up in smoke.

I wonder if he came to accept that things really had changed, and that yesterdays liberal outlook just wasn't supplying answers for the problems? Maybe he stoked his bitterness and anger, and showed up at rallies as a graying, balding relic from a bygone era with faded anti war signs and half forgotten slogans and chants.

I get the sense that this is where Rod and Maggie are going in varying degrees. Maggie more so. I think that Rod has enough sense to find another path, perhaps. A Social Conservative Lion In The Wilderness, if you will.

Those of who are literally fighting for our marriages (and sometimes our actual lives...) are not disheartened. We know which way the tide is turning. We know who will win.

The previous anonymous comment was mine. OTOH, I think the gay marriage crowd is making a mistake by heaping personal ridicule towards Maggie Gallagher's way. She has far more substance than the silly, shallow Anita Bryant, or for that matter Falwell. If she presents legitimate arguments on television, and the best the gay marriage crowd can do is scream "fat bigot!" she will best them, as Schlafly, far less a sympathetic person than Gallagher bested the feminists in the ERA campaigns. Just please cut the idiot teevee ads.

The truth will win. That is why Maggie Gallagher can't.

People should not be allowed to attempt to conceive with someone of their same sex.

*************************

Is this even possible at our current state of science? I haven't heard of it.

Would this forbid the far more common practice of having one member of a lesbian pair conceive by artificial insemination? Or if that is forbidden too (and how would that be enforced?) what's to stop her from going to a bar one night an recruiting a real man for the purpose? Would you criminalize casual sex between consenting heterosexuals? That's a bigger change than anything else proposed here!

John Howard has an exceedingly strange obsession with the mechanics of procreation. He will try to work this into most any thread, no matter how tangential. You used to run into him at the Balkinization law blog before they shut down comments, and he can be found haunting the Volokh Conspiracy as well.

His, ahem, blog can be found here, if you are really curious. I don't really advise it, but there it is.

http://eggandsperm.blogspot.com/

I am all for gay marriage. Go gay marriage! Woo hoo!
On a totally unrelated note, have you heard about all the trouble the heteros are causing? Seems that 40% of the children born in the country are born outside of wedlock. There's also tons of evidence that children born in single-parent households are at far greater risk of poverty, school dropout, delinquency, teen pregnancy, adult joblessness, and other problems.
We need to come up with a brand new institution designed to prevent these problems. Lets call it, I don't know, how about "schmarriage."
Whereas marriage is designed to make yourself happy, schmarriage is designed to prevent problems in others.
Whereas marriage is an agreement between two individuals, schmarriage would be an obligation between parents not to abandon each other or the child, between the parents and the child to raise them right and not abandon them, and between the parents and society no raise the child to be a good citizen.
Whereas marriage has no commitment beyond when you no longer feel like being committed, shmarriage is an obligation that lasts until your obligation to the child is fulfilled.
Whereas marriage has no societal impact and is entirely your own business, the societal effects of children being raised by a single parent are such that society must take a great interest in seeing the schmarriage works out.
Of course, a subset of married people can not cause the problems that result from producing children, so there would be no need for them to get schmarried anymore than someone who is immune to a disease needs an innculation.

no fault divorce has been out there for almost forty freaking years, but it's the fault of the gays that it hasn't been addressed?

What a shrill and paranoid reaction.

Look. No-fault divorce has done more to harm marriage than the same-sex "marriage" movement. But the former is stealthy while the latter is loud.

And there would be no same-sex "marriage" movement at all had not no-fault divorce paved the way to the trivialization of matrimony.

What set the stage for no-fault divorce? The normalization of the separation of human sexuality's procreative and unitive aspects -- thanks to Christian participation in, or indifference to, contraception, abortion and the rest of the selfish trappings of the "Sexual Revolution." (See SDG's comments above.)

Historically speaking, it was a short walk from the Lambeth Conference of 1930 to the same-sex "marriage" movement of the early 2000s.

"Truth and love wlll prevail over lies and hate."

Good grief, she applies that to her side?!? Is she serious? Lies, antipathy (if not hate) and paranoia fill the anti-SSM side.

Zach Treed responded:

What a shrill and paranoid reaction.

Allow me to re-quote what you originally posted:

No-fault divorce slips under the radar because it seems merely ominous compared with the clear and present mauling being meted out by the gay-"marriage" movement. The reality is that we're too busy fending off a school of piranhas to notice that Godzilla has slipped into the lagoon and is quietly eating everything in his path.

So for forty years no-fault divorce has been "slipping under the radar" because you're "too busy fending off a school of piranhas" (i.e. gay marriage).

But that does not in any way mean that people who want gay marriage are responsible for no-fault divorce, even though they're the "piranhas" that are keeping you from dealing with the issue.

OK. I think I understand the thought process behind the trad position now.

I agree with Maggie and I will say again--we are reaching Peak-Homosexual Marriage and this nonsense will correct itself out over the coming decades.

We have a small congregation and a small choir with a few well-meaning monotones in the mix. This meant that our service was musically somewhat off-key, but at the same time, I appreciate the effort. I enjoyed the sermon, but most enjoyed teaching my small children's Sunday school class about the symbols of Easter. They are aged 5-8 and are usually bouncing off the walls, but yesterday they were perfectly attentive, facinated by the story. I could almost see the wheels turning in their minds, making Christian sense of their world. It really was a great pleasure. Then, in the evening, our oldest daughter called to say that they have just learned that they are expecting their first baby in November. We are so thrilled to become grandparents. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful Easter day.

What do people generally think about SDG's suggestion? Effectively removing the government from marriage and conferring social rights based on households? It admits that there is no cultural consensus regarding the value of marriage. But, unfortunately, there isn’t. And it might have the advantage of saving marriage from heterosexual Protestants.

I agree with the consensus that marriage is mostly dead and it's not the fault of the gays. Gay marriage is just a reasonable and foreseeable result of our narcissistic reimagining of marriage as an impermanent relationship intended to satisfy our sexual urges and perceived emotional wants.

On the other hand, Gallagher is probably right about there being a large segment of the population who has been cowed into submission. Unfortunately, because marriage is in tatters, the objection of most of those people to homosexuality is the ick factor. But the ick factor, in the long run, is not going to win the debate. One of the many unfortunate effects of the pornification of our culture is the acceptance, particularly among younger people, of some pretty vile sex acts. Poster bernalman quipped a few days ago that sodomy (of the back door variety) is practiced with increasing frequency by heterosexuals. If that is true, then the ick factor will be lost in the relatively near future.

I would hope that the ick factor (which, I think, is evidence of the promptings of conscience) could be a hook to encourage those individuals to rethink their understanding of marriage. If the debate were about the nature of marriage as a fundamental social institution then I think truth, justice and the American way at least has a fighting chance. But if the argument continues to be that marriage is a narcissistic and impermanent relationship intended to satisfy our sexual urges (particularly the strange ones) and perceived emotional wants, but only if a person of the opposite sex is assaulted by our acts sodomitical, then I don't see how we win the argument. I'm not even sure what the argument would be. Yeah we're nasty, but you're nastier?

Empedocles, I love your proposed new institution, the "schmarriage." With the caveat that one's own marriage can never be a shmarriage--only the marriages of those horrid, reprobate other people can be schmarriages. ; )

Okay,
I heard her talk about "truth" in her opinion. Where in there was the love? I didn't see any. Maybe it was in the part that Rod didn't print

Horsefeathers, how about Richard Simmons in a shark suit?

I think I tend to agree with both Rod and Maggie, in some senses.

We may not win this fight. But it's way too early to give it up, draw back, and hope that within the brand-new marriage paradigm there will be room for, and protection for, those of us who think that gender difference is a key aspect of marriage, not a mere historical accident motivated by bigotry.

In other words, we can't give up the fight because it would be wrong to do so. There are going to be huge societal consequences of removing gender difference from the definition of marriage, and some of those who object to it do so not on religious grounds, but on human ones. Carving out religious exemptions now, while gay marriage is only legal or about to be legal in four states, and imposed in three of them by the courts with no reference whatsoever to the will of the people, seems to me to be too hasty a retreat in the face of what is more propaganda than anything else right now.

Does that mean that there will not come a time when same-sex marriage is more popular than it is now, and that people may have to consider different strategies? No; we may find ourselves at some point having to have these conversations. But so far the pro-SSM people have been pretty clear in their ultimate intentions: religious beliefs against homosexual acts *will* be defined as bigotry, and religious believers *will* publicly kowtow to the same-sex "married" couple, or be forced out of many sectors of business, industry, health care (particularly counseling) and the like which require people to affirm same-sex marriage daily in the course of their business dealings. If this is what they're willing to offer us now, when only four states have agreed to redefine marriage to include those who practice homosexual acts with each other, what makes any of us think that there will ever be a time when "carving out religious exemptions" will be possible?

The end game of the pro-SSM people is clear: force societal acceptance and approval of all homosexual acts and behavior, and remove from all traditional religions any ability to discuss outside their church buildings the sinful and destructive nature of this way of living--and even, if the Canadian model is followed, to stifle such messages within the churches. Approaching them now to sue for terms of surrender is likely going to make the future worse, not better, for religious believers.

Geoff G -
So the LDS CHURCH was out there beating the bushes trying to get civil unions stopped? Wow, I didn't hear anything about that. Oh, that's right because they didn't fight it. It's not part of their mission to advocate for civil unions, but they didn't fight against it either. Very, very rarely does the LDS church take a stance on any political issue. Same sex marriage is one of those rare instances. They aren't going to speak up about civil unions to support or fight against it. Don't confuse the LDS church with the Utah legislature. Yes, a lot of legislators are LDS, but the votes weren't encouraged by the church.

Erin is taking the 1970s and 1980s pro-life advocacy approach. No compromise. No acknowledging the facts on the ground. Just dig in and fight, fight, fight. We see how well that's worked. 35 years after Roe and the pro-life movement--while finally marginalizing the Randall Terry's and clinic bombers of the movement--still hasn't accomplished much because they weren't willing to compromise.

What the SSM movement has to be careful of is not using the NARAL approach to gay marriage. There will need to be some compromises--like acknowledging concerns about religious liberty--and a willingness to engage the "soft" opponents who are going to be turned off by the Maggie Gallagher's of the world.

Gay marriage is now legal in four states. Like every other civil rights movement, it experienced its first victories in the courts. As Vermont proved, it can now be won through the legislatures. New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey are going to be next within the next five years.

Once you've given people the taste of equality and fairness, you can't turn that back. Gay marriage isn't going to be eliminated in Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Vermont. Iowa doesn't look hopeful for reversal. I'd expect another ballot initiative in California (where the legislature has already approved it twice) and I don't think Mormon money is going to influence California twice.

So gay marriage is here to stay. If the Maggies and Erin's of the world aren't willing to compromise, they are going to find themselves on the outside.

Merle, thanks. Obviously I wasn't being serious. The point is merely that the debate should be over the function of marriage and not its definition. Even though marriage has become an agreement between two people to, I don't know, stay together for as long as they feel like (that's not even really an agreement), I don't think that is its TRUE purpose. It's true purpose is to prevent the problems that arise from single-parents households that I mentioned. Suppose crime in a city was escalating dramatically because the police department no longer think that it is their function to prevent crime and enforce the law. Instead, the police department has morphed into an organization that believes its function is to produce police officers because police officers get respect, and that no responsibilities as regards fighting crime follow from becoming a police officer any longer. I say that the reason crime is out of control is because the police no longer perform their function. Others say the police DO perform their function, which is to produce police officers. I say we need to get the police force back to enforcing the laws and catching criminals. They say that it is impossible to get the police force back to what it once was. I say that it isn’t impossible as long as we make sure that police officers are once again held to the duties, obligations, and responsibilities they once had. What’s more, despite that the police force currently thinks its function is something else, I think it makes sense to say that its TRUE function is to enforce the law. So I don't think the word "marriage" should be abandoned for "schmarriage" unless we want to create a new organization called the "schmolice".

Very, very rarely does the LDS church take a stance on any political issue.

Pardon the term, but I call BS on that. The Mormon church has fought gay rights, civil unions, SSM for over two decades. From the very first battle in Hawaii, they've had a national strategy and a national effort to stop same-sex couples from getting legal recognition.

Right now, they're focusing their efforts on Illinois, which will soon take up, not marriage, but civil unions.

This is a very powerful movement, no question. Nobody understands that better than I do.

I loved that line from Maggie! Did anyone else suddenly hear "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen..." in his head?

Poor Maggie. The only thing the battle for SSM has done to her is bump her up a tax bracket or two...

i I prefer to think of myself as taking a page from the anti-ERA playbook.

Oh dear. Your movement is doomed for sure. Gay marriage will be in all 50 states in 20 years.

Zach,

I love it! Consider your project green-lit! :D

-HF

Rod and Maggie are both self-delusional.

"Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'"

No - it's founded on love and an equal-protection clause in the constitution.

"What does losing marriage mean? First the rejection of the idea that children need a mom and dad as a cultural norm--or probably even as a respectable opinion. That's become very clear for people who have the eyes to see it. (See e.g. footnote 26 of the Iowa decision)."

What is it about allowing gays to marry each other somehow nullifies anyone's opinion about children needing a mom and a dad? Under that theory, straight people who can't biologically have children shouldn't be allowed to marry, and yet we allow that to happen every day!

Christian scripture and tradition affirm the legitimacy of slavery, claim that the Jews are cursed for killing Jesus, and assert that one must give away all of one's belongings and even learn to hate one's own family before following Christ. These are just a few of the matters on which contemporary Christians feel quite comfortable breaking with, or explaining away, scripture and tradition.

The issue, then, is to determine why so many contemporary Christians have decided that the teaching on homosexuality -- but not the teachings on slavery, Jews, and the most stringent requirements of becoming a disciple of Christ -- deserves to be preserved.

'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'.

No - you are a bigot if you force gay people to live their according to the dictates of your conscience.

"I loved that line from Maggie! Did anyone else suddenly hear "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen..." in his head?"

Hahahaha...I almost choked on my progressive prosciutto snack when I read that.

Drat! You made me spew my chardonnay all over my keyboard!!!

Maggie Gallagher's statement that "Public opinion hasn't changed much at all" is false. See
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/gay-marriage-by-numbers.html

"The National Review is correct that the trend toward greater support for gay marriage and civil unions stalled out some in the wake of the Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health decision in November, 2003. (In fact, it may have temporarily reversed itself). They are wrong, however, that gay marriage has failed to gain support since that date. Per the LOESS curves, gay marriage has gained about 8 points of support since November 2003, while civil unions have gained about 13 points of ground. Because of sampling variance and vagaries of question wording from survey to survey, the trend isn't always perfectly smooth. But the overall trend is fairly manifest; the rate of increase in support for gay marriage and civil unions has if anything accelerated since the Massachusetts decision.

"This does not mean that gay marriage is "inevitable". On some "cultural" issues such as marijuana legalization, there have been periods of years at a time when the "liberal" position was losing ground (although marijuana legalization has since regained support). The public's views on abortion, meanwhile, have been stuck at more or less the same numbers -- with a narrow majority/plurality taking the pro-choice position -- for literally decades.

"Support for gay marriage, however, is strongly generational. In a CBS news poll conducted last month, 64 percent of voters aged 18-45 supported either gay marriage or civil unions, but only 45 percent of voters aged 65 and up did. Civil unions have already achieved the support of an outright majority of Americans, and as those older voters are replaced by younger ones, the smart money is that gay marriage will reach majority status too at some point in the 2010's."

This religous liberty red herring reminds me of recent reports of the new Shaira law passed in Afghanistan. I read one report of a Shiite cleric defending the law (which allows for marital rape, among other things) on the basis of religious liberty. And for the record, my Baptist church has been blessing same sex couples since 1978.

Maggie Gallagher is a hypocrite. She was an unwed mother. Now she blathers on about how children need a father and a mother. Right.

She whines about our side not compromising. Why should we? In Arizona, every attempt to get ANY rights for gays and lesbians (i.e., shared library cards, swimming pool memberships, and hospital visitation) has been attacked by the fundamentalist group headed by Maggie-a-like Cathi Herrod. Honestly, Rod, what are you doing Gallagher. She is one of the reasons we will win, she is a horrible spokesperson for the anti-gay marriage side. Young people see and listen to her and are repulsed.

Applause and secret crush on the reliable smartness of Geoff G. He always sez my stuff first so I don't hafta!

inahandbasket, how is your "marriage" equal to the union of a man and a woman?

Oh, I know. Procreation has nothing to do with marriage--because you say so. Gender difference has nothing to do with marriage--because you say so. Children, and the environment in which they are raised, have nothing to do with marriage--because you say so.

What you, and other SSM activists, want to do is take a relationship that is not and never can be marriage and force everyone else to redefine marriage in such a way that suddenly same-sex relationships are included in its definition. I get that this is important to you, to force everyone else to accept your private beliefs that marriage ought to include same-sex couples, but why should those who disagree, strongly, on human and societal grounds, be forced to accept your private philosophical beliefs that "marriage" can mean two men or two women, when the word "marriage" has never in human history until the historical equivalent of twenty minutes ago been thought to contain that particular coupling as part of its meaning?

but why should those who disagree, strongly, on human and societal grounds, be forced to accept your private philosophical beliefs that "marriage" can mean two men or two women, when the word "marriage" has never in human history until the historical equivalent of twenty minutes ago been thought to contain that particular coupling as part of its meaning?

Because we live in a country founded on equality and liberty. We live in a country where people who are aggrieved can take their cases to the people and the courts to obtain justice. We don't live in a country bound by the record of human history as its only guide for what is just and we don't live in a theocracy where proof texting rules the day.

Thus, we live in a dynamic society where people who were slaves when the democracy began are now free, where women who were considered property can now vote, and where people of all backgrounds have been able to rely on the courts and the constitution and the people to obtain their civil rights, no matter what the "record of human history" has said on the matter.

"inahandbasket, how is your "marriage" equal to the union of a man and a woman?"

Such tolerance and generosity. Do we have your religion to thank for your overwhelmingly positive attitude toward humanity? Where do I sign up? Oh and do I have to bring my own stones or does your church provide them?

Instaed lets force Christians to live according to the dictates of our conscience.

Christians do not have do anything with Gay marriages, only to not interfere. It's the same restrictions placed on everyone else, from AA to the KKK. Granted, that means there is a limitation to discrimination - the power makes choices for others you think to be inferior in some way - but that will always be the case with a free society. As Thomas Jefferson observed about his home state of Virginia:

"Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order: or if a sect arises, whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering the state to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions. On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. "

If people in America really are too benightedly unintelligent to understand the difference between the accidental infertility of age or disease that can sometimes afflict a man and a woman, and the infertility which exists because two men engaging in sex acts or two women engaging in sex acts are not capable of ever achieving reproduction by the nature of their biological incompatibility and the inherent sterility of such acts, well, then, maybe America deserves gay "marriage." And plural "marriage," and incestuous "marriage," and the "marriage" of two celibate elderly sisters who just want in on the tax breaks.

Marriage means nothing because words mean nothing.

"No, Erica, no. This is not typical of real Christianity"

I'm aware of that:)And thank God for the real Christians out there.

maybe America deserves gay "marriage."

Hope so.

There are gay people looking for the benefits of marriage because they are in stable relationships (I met my husband during the Reagan administration) and they have property and sometimes even children. Many even have the support of their own religious denominations. You have no answer for them.

Maybe Erin does have an answer for these families.

Erin, what is it?

How would you propose to support these children - there are quite a lot of them - legally and socially? Do you think they will just vaporize because you don't approve of them? They won't. So....what happens then? They're just out of luck?

How do you propose to deal with the adults who have been in stable relationships probably longer than you've been alive? Do you seriously propose not to support that?

Erin won't answer, I can confidently predict, because she has no answers that make sense. No answers at all. Simply chanting that marriage is about reproduction (except when it isn't, don't forget that part!) doesn't hold much water (especially when we're considering the welfare of children!).

What happens now, Erin? Do these people just evaporate because you don't approve of them?

Your Name 6:30 Maybe Erin does have an answer for these families.

Well, I have an answer for those families: Civil Unions that are defined as "marriage minus conception rights": They would be exactly like marriage except they would not protect conception rights and therefore they'd be compatible with an Egg and Sperm law that banned things like cloning and genetic engineering and same-sex conception. With that distinction, and because it would end SSM in America, Congress could easily find consensus to recognize such CU's as if they were marraiges for federal purposes.

Erin Manning, well-versed in scorched-earth Christianity, wrote:

The end game of the pro-SSM people is clear: force societal acceptance and approval of all homosexual acts and behavior, and remove from all traditional religions any ability to discuss outside their church buildings the sinful and destructive nature of this way of living--and even, if the Canadian model is followed, to stifle such messages within the churches.

First of all, unless you understand the SCC's interpretation of the first clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (indeed if you even know who Brian Dickson was) or if you even have a clue what a "notwithstanding" clause is, or have the slightest idea what R. v. Keegstra was about, you really ought to STFU about applying what's happening in Canada to what's happening in the US before more people figure out that you are a total ignoramus on the subject and are talking out of your behind.

WRT "societal acceptance and approval", especially yours, allow me to quote Rhett Butler: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn". No-one's shutting you up. Feel free to run off and join the Westboro Baptist Church. Go protest at soldier's funerals. Wave your "God hates fags" sign anywhere you want. I really don't care. As far as I, personally, am concerned, your own, personal opinion is less than meaningless to me.

To the extent that you can frame an intelligent argument, I'm happy to debate you. But when you start throwing unmitigated crap around like "OMG Someone in Canada had their free speech muzzled SO WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE THROWN TO THE LIONS!!!!@11!!" or "OMG FREE SPEACH IS DED CUZ OF TEH GHEYZ!!!11!" when you know damn well that the most virulent racists and anti-Semites have the freedom to put up a website or run a radio program or hold a demonstration spewing whatever vile filth they want in this country, then you just reveal how utterly mendacious and devoid of anything resembling morality your side is.

John D writes:

Procreation, you tell us, is important in marriage. Unless the couple is infertile. Then it isn't.

But that's not what Erin wrote. She wrote that procreation in marriage is fundamental to what a marriage is AND that "accidental" sterility doesn't alter the nature of the sex act. A man and woman engaging in a non-contraceptive act of vaginal intercourse is still a sex act that is procreative by its nature, it just happens not to be procreative in a particular instance (i.e., because the sterility of one or both of the parties). That sterility is called accidental because it does not change the species of the act (i.e., it doesn’t make the man a woman or the woman a man or the vagina something other than a vagina or the penis something other than a penis). Sterility in this case is like color (e.g., the color of the penis does not change the nature of the sex act). This can be contrasted with a sex act that by its nature cannot be procreative. Sodomy, for example.

DeeAnn, qui tacet consentiret, eh?

While I agree, that is a very good legal maxim, I must construe according to my wits. It would seem that this silence was not silence at all, but most eloquent denial.

formerly sympathetic: "They are by far more hateful, intolerant, and (especially) illogical than their fundamentalist opponents."

Well if that's the way we seem to you, then it's a good thing you stopped supporting us. We're better off without you, really.

I'm sick of this "compromise" crap: it's impossible to compromise with people who are convinced your only goal in life is to destroy them.

Call us sinners, call us perverts, call us fascists, call us whatever you want. We will never stop fighting to be treated as equal members of this country. The religious right may be too sensitive to tolerate name-calling, but we're not.

Loudon Is A Fool wrote: But that's not what Erin wrote. She wrote that procreation in marriage is fundamental to what a marriage is AND that "accidental" sterility doesn't alter the nature of the sex act.

The right to procreate is fundamental to what a marriage is, and that's why infertility doesn't alter the nature of the marriage. Consider that a brother and sister are perfectly fertile together but we don't let them marry. This proves that it is not about ability to procreate, it is about the right to procreate. We should not give people the right to procreate with someone of the same sex. Why is this so hard to accept? Erin, Rod, why can't you address the issue of whether we should allow people to conceive with someone of the same sex?

Loudon is a Fool
April 14, 2009 7:50 PM

John D writes:

Procreation, you tell us, is important in marriage. Unless the couple is infertile. Then it isn't.

But that's not what Erin wrote. She wrote that procreation in marriage is fundamental to what a marriage is AND that "accidental" sterility doesn't alter the nature of the sex act. A man and woman engaging in a non-contraceptive act of vaginal intercourse is still a sex act that is procreative by its nature, it just happens not to be procreative in a particular instance (i.e., because the sterility of one or both of the parties). That sterility is called accidental because it does not change the species of the act (i.e., it doesn’t make the man a woman or the woman a man or the vagina something other than a vagina or the penis something other than a penis). Sterility in this case is like color (e.g., the color of the penis does not change the nature of the sex act). This can be contrasted with a sex act that by its nature cannot be procreative. Sodomy, for example.

Listening to too much Alan Keyes again.... Shame, shame... The same Alan Keyes who kicked his out lesbian daughter to the proverbial curb when she came out.

Erin Manning
April 14, 2009 5:32 PM

"inahandbasket, how is your "marriage" equal to the union of a man and a woman?"

In what sphere do you mean?
According to the laws of this country and the state in which I currently live, my MARRIAGE means nothing. If we lived in Canada, we would be on 100 percent equal footing with opposite sex marriage. For the four US states that now have marriage equality (MA, CT, VT and IA) same sex married couples will be equal according to the state laws but not according to federal laws.

I TOTALLY GET that you will never, ever accept the FACT that this country is slowly, inexorably moving towards marriage equality. I understand, really, I do. What YOU need to understand is that WE DO NOT NEED your personal acceptance. I do NOT CARE whether you approve or not. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

"Oh, I know. Procreation has nothing to do with marriage--because you say so. Gender difference has nothing to do with marriage--because you say so. Children, and the environment in which they are raised, have nothing to do with marriage--because you say so."

Do you see what you are doing? You are taking what you think I'm thinking and ascribe those thoughts to me. Cut and paste where I've said the above.

"What you, and other SSM activists, want to do is take a relationship that is not and never can be marriage and force everyone else to redefine marriage in such a way that suddenly same-sex relationships are included in its definition. I get that this is important to you, to force everyone else to accept your private beliefs that marriage ought to include same-sex couples, but why should those who disagree, strongly, on human and societal grounds, be forced to accept your private philosophical beliefs that "marriage" can mean two men or two women, when the word "marriage" has never in human history until the historical equivalent of twenty minutes ago been thought to contain that particular coupling as part of its meaning?"

I will say it for the umpteenth time: We are not forcing anyone to change their beliefs. You can live in your non-acceptance and disgust for all time. I DO NOT CARE, I CANNOT CARE, that your side is losing the battle. The laws, both state and federal, will change to reflect progress. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Your opinion, your non-acceptance of the reality of same-sex civil, lawful marriage closely mirrors the disgust of the anti-mescengenists of the past and present. Is that who you want to be associated with as time and society marches forward?

Erin asked:

How is your "marriage" equal to the union of a man and a woman?

I answer:

In every way that truly matters: in love, in commitment, in mutual respect and help and yes, as the foundation of our growing family and in parenting.

I have been blessed in my marriage. I wake up every day and see his handsome sleeping face and fall in love with him again. I held his hand while he was wheeled into the operating room for an emergency appendectomy, and was beside him when he became conscious again.

For all your faith and rhetoric you have reduced marriage to some sort of functional fertility structure necessary. I see marriage as a union of love and dedication, sacrifice and permanent commitment. You have reduced the purpose of marriage to manufacturing offspring and sustaining them while they grow. I see marriage as a place where people may choose to bless themselves and the world with the fruit of their love, and where the best thing they can give to their children is not the accident of their genes, but the actuality of their virtue and of their love. You reduce the parents to givers and the children to takers. I see marriage and families as a relationship where each gives to the others and takes from them and all are enriched thereby.

As an American, I say that we must treat people equally under the law.

As a guy married to another guy, I love marriage in general and my marriage in particular and I say "God bless it!"

I regret that your religious beliefs are different. But they are your business. They shouldn't be mine or the government's.

With respect Geoff G, no you don't. It may be because you don't understand how to analyze an act. But I think my explanation was as clear as it can be given the difficulty of the subject matter and my limited capacity.

I would disagree with your 1a) and your "normal course of events" rule is something you just made up, not something that I wrote.

I agree that civil marriage can be defined in any way the civil authority wishes. The question is whether it maters if the civil authority defines things to be other than they are. For example, the civil authority could define "fed" as " to be fed sand." They could then pass a law that says "Any child who has not eaten over a 24 hour period can present himself at the Ministry of Information and be fed." You may be able to guess whether such a program will serve the intention of providing nourishment to the impoverished. Because maybe eating is more than chewing and swallowing.

I also had another post that appears to have been not approved (and quite rightly so, since I was responding to Erin in kind). Let me give a more reasoned version of what I said in the heat of the moment (and Rod was kind enough to act as my angel of better judgment).

Erin Manning wrote:

The end game of the pro-SSM people is clear: force societal acceptance and approval of all homosexual acts and behavior, and remove from all traditional religions any ability to discuss outside their church buildings the sinful and destructive nature of this way of living--and even, if the Canadian model is followed, to stifle such messages within the churches.

First: don't bring up Canadian law as a model for what will happen in the US unless you understand:

(a) How the Charter of Rights and Freedoms differs from the Bill of Rights
(b) How the SCC has chosen to interpret the Charter in light of § 15, § 21, § 1.
(c) A basic understanding of the issues in R. v. Keegstra and how they were resolved by the Court.

Frankly, your ignorance is showing when you try to scare people into thinking that Canadian law will be adopted wholesale here. It makes you look hysterical to anyone who has even the most cursory awareness of the differences between the two systems.

Moreover, given that, as I'm sure you are well aware, we in the US tolerate websites, radio programs, demonstrations, in short all kinds of the most vile, racist or anti-Semitic hate speech because of the First Amendment, the idea that you can't run off and have your little "God hates Queers" sessions either in your church or in the public square is, frankly, laughable.

Second: With respect to your "acceptance and approval", frankly I couldn't care less. I neither require nor desire your acceptance or approval. Shake your tiny little fist at me all you want. I'm not going to stop you, nor do I expect the government to.

What I do demand is that the government allow me to arrange my own affairs and not provide special privileges that it does not make available to me. That's a dispute between me and the government. It's an A-B conversation...C your way out of it.

Scott M., same applies to you. Call it whatever you want.

"I will never give up the fight to name it as it is."

Good luck with that.

And congrats on finally spelling it correctly.

Alanmt, you write:

"For all your faith and rhetoric you have reduced marriage to some sort of functional fertility structure necessary. I see marriage as a union of love and dedication, sacrifice and permanent commitment. You have reduced the purpose of marriage to manufacturing offspring and sustaining them while they grow. I see marriage as a place where people may choose to bless themselves and the world with the fruit of their love, and where the best thing they can give to their children is not the accident of their genes, but the actuality of their virtue and of their love. You reduce the parents to givers and the children to takers. I see marriage and families as a relationship where each gives to the others and takes from them and all are enriched thereby."

That's all very nice-sounding. But what has it got to do with the law? Where is the state's interest? Is the state demanding a "union of love and dedication, sacrifice and permanent commitment?" Not even the last-named is required anymore, though I think it would improve marriage immensely if it were. Can the government require the married to "bless themselves and the world with the fruit of their love, and where the best thing they can give to their children is not the accident of their genes, but the actuality of their virtue and of their love..."? No, but the government can require you to accept the obligation of taking care of the biological offspring which are the natural and expected result of a marriage. Can the state, further, define marriage "as a relationship where each gives to the others and takes from them and all are enriched thereby..."? Not without being far too vague for the law, and pretty much ensuring that any relationship whatsoever, including that of boss and employee, should be called a "marriage." (And the Socialist Party would be the most married people *ever*).

I'm not trying to "reduce" marriage to anything. I'm trying to decipher why, if marriage is nothing more than a nicey-nice feel good relationship between adults who like having some form of sexual contact and want to visit each other in the hospital, the state should define marriage, issue marriage licenses, or in any way be concerned in or involved with this thing we call "marriage?" The state isn't generally concerned about people's relationships, no matter how transient or long-lived. There are no "grandmother licenses" indicating how long grandma gets to hold the newborn before Aunt Sadie gets a crack at the cuddling. There are no "cousin licenses" which spell out whether or not your school can force you to be on the same baseball team as Cousin Wiley and his reputation for stealing bases.

What's the state's interest in the new hedonistic marriage which means what you say it means? Clearly the state's interest can't be in the children, because we've already established ad infinitum that marriage has NOTHING to do with children, or their parents' responsibilities toward them. So, given that marriage means quite literally nothing in the eyes of the law in a post-SSM world, why should the law, or the state, or the government, continue issuing "licenses" that essentially say, "Now be nice to the person you're sleeping with for now!" and pat people on the metaphorical heads as they usher them out the courtroom doors?

Oooops. I must have misunderstood the discussion.

Everyone else is talking about sex.

I am talking about love.

I am actually quite conservative, Erin. I think that the state does have a legitimate interest in promoting marriage as a stable foundation for families, composed of loving couples and, where applicable, their children. Although it is helpful, I don't think that state encouragement of the institution is required. I do think that some laws regulating the nature, rights and responsibilites pertaining to this most important union are necessary for the orderly operation of a just society.

I also recognize, as you apparently do not, that both straight and gay couples enter into these loving commitments to each other, and become families, some of which have children. There is no legitimate governmental interest in treating these families differently; the same goal of stability pertains and the same need for legal handling of rights and responsibilities, including those relating to parenting, exist. Equality is a matter of fundamental fairness and justness.

We should not give people the right to procreate with someone of the same sex. Why is this so hard to accept?

We do not give anyone rights. We are endowed by our creator (for some, God; for others, Nature) with Natural Rights. Therefore all men are created equal (meaning with equal rights) because we all equally human. Our country is unique and exceptional for this very reason. It was the Founding Fathers who reasoned that the distinctions between every group of humans (Lords and Commoners, Catholics and Protestants, Men and Women) was irrelevant in regards to Civil Rights and access to government. Furthermore, tyranny was basis that allowed every other society in history to oppress minorities. Truly noble sentiments, but we two centuries of hard work have made real - for most of us - the promise of "Liberty for all".

Because marriage is a natural right, no one can not deprive another consenting adult of their right to marry short of demonstrable harm (eg. birth defects arising from the offspring of close relatives). There is no such harm from Gay Marriage, only suspicions - lacking empirical evidence - of a vague danger to be manifested some number of decades hence.

That can never be reasonable grounds to restrict the rights of those who you disapprove - for if you have the right to oppress them, then I have the right oppress you - and that path leads to civil war.

What's the state's interest in the new hedonistic marriage

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites ...

That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.

But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all ... They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws.

--Thomas Jefferson

"Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'."

How come nobody cares to address this issue?

formerly sympathetic wrote:
April 14, 2009 7:19 PM

"To be perfectly frank, if SSM advocates were wise they would simply shut up."

That's why it's imperative for the rest of us to keep up the dialogue.

*lifts eyebrow archly*

I think you know.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I am off to listen to Susan Boyle again.

Erin

Geoff G., I just now saw your 9:48 post. How on earth did you know I have tiny little fists? It's the sorrow of my life that I can't play notes an octave apart on a piano, and thus will never be more than a hunt-n-peck treble clef sort of person. :)

I see some gals who have a similar problem on the harp. Since I am stuck with "man hands" I can do octave chords easily enough, which is about the only good thing I think of for having them. My wife has small hands and plays the flute and Irish tin whistle. I bought her a low whistle some years back, and her hands are too small to make the reaches necessary. :(

Instead of fighting with you on GLBT matters, I think it best to just keep the conversation on lighter subjects...

John Howard, it depends on your definition of procreate. If you literally mean to reproduce, then I understand your point. However, some supporters of heterosexual-only marriage argue that "procreation" is equivalent to sex and not reproduction (ex. their rationale for sterile heterosexual couples to marry). So if you mean to have sex with, then I strongly disagree for all previous reasons.

In the conservative narrative, it looks like the sexual revolution gets the blame for decoupling sex and reproduction. to the detriment of marriage (and civilization). It appears that Rod and Erin, at least, think same sex marriage followed naturally from this.

I just don't think this narrative corresponds to reality. I think the sequence of events went more like this:

1) In the forties and fifties, the increasing availability of communications media made it harder to suppress information about Gay men and Lesbians, at the same time as scientific studies uncovered the hypocrisy of laws relating to sexual conduct. At the same time, it became pretty clear that persecuting Gay men and Lesbians could have a high social, as well as personal cost. Certainly, the persecution and castration of Alan Turing, which led to his suicide, deprived Britain and the world of a great talent, at an enormous cost.

2) In the sixties and seventies, society in general reached an initial accommodation with Gay men and Lesbians: governments in most places would stop active persecution and harassment, but Gay and Lesbian relationships would not enjoy anything more than tolerance. This had the effect it usually has: people denied the ability to form permanent relationships developed sex as an affirmation, and a culture of promiscuity developed.

3) In the eighties and nineties, the advent of HIV made it quite clear that denying Gay men and Lesbians the social support to form permanent relationships has a dangerous downside. Much of the support for same-sex marriage, it seems to me, comes out of experience. Persecuting Gay men and Lesbians hasn't worked, mere tolerance hasn't worked; let's try the next logical step, and at least affirm the choice of Gay men and Lesbians to enter into long-term, faithful, and responsible relationships.

This leads to the obvious question: what end-game to Rod and Maggie Gallagher propose. Suppose you defeat the Gay Marriage proposals once and for all. Massachusetts, Iowa, and Connecticut change their state constitutions, Vermont repeals its same-sex marriage statute, the Human Rights Campaign closes its office and disconnects its telephone. What outcome do you propose for the larger society? You've just to 2-10% of the population that you won't support their relationships. Do you go back to persecution and hope the police don't catch the next Alan Turing, and try not to think about what might have happened if the British Police had caught Turing before the war instead of after? Do you try to turn the clock back to 1977, and just hope people use condoms this time? If anyone has a link to someone who has seriously thought this through, beyond simply saying "no", then please post it.

"Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'."

How come nobody cares to address this issue?

I'm not sure exactly what there is to address. Do you want us to address the unsupported assertion about the purpose of same sex marriage or the claim that all who disagree with supporting same sex marriage are bigots? I try not to get caught up in the framing of a debate and do my best not to buy into the claim that someone else makes when they have not supported it with evidence or validly stated arguments.

The legal argument about same sex marriage is whether the state has any compelling interest in treating same sex couples differently from opposite sex couples and is justified in refusing to give them a marriage license.

It's hard to know where to begin. I've already so thoroughly discredited Maggie Gallagher that this is starting to get tedious. (See my blog, wordinedgewise.org, and posts such as "Down Payment on Demolition" among others._ Let me just make a few quick and decisive points here:

1. As always, Gallagher simply insists on the truth of her belief: that kids need a mother and a father. This is surprising, first, because she doesn't oppose gay adoption. Second, she neither has nor cares about evidence to the contrary.

2. Her comment that this isn't about fear, but about hope, is directly contradicted by the inadvertently amusing video, "The Gathering Storm," which her organization funded and produced. It begins: "A storm is gathering. The clouds are dark and the winds are strong. And I am afraid."

3. This business about how, if marriage equality is achieved, she and others like her will be "bigots" is a tired and ineffective effort to re-cast herself from oppressor to victim. As a gay parent of two children my SPOUSE and I adopted, I grow weary of this constant "unsaying" of my and my family's life.

4. There's also no content to the "bigot" assertion. In "The Gathering Storm," one of the C-list actors says: "I'm a California doctor forced to choose between my faith and my job." What, exactly, is she talking about? We're not told; and that's a good thing, because it doesn't make any sense. I've also dealt with this point in my latest post: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatheads."

"Truth and love will prevail over lies and hate. ... Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'."

No. Truth and Love WILL prevail, but they are not what you think they are! What is truthful and loving about calling others perverted, malformed, pedophiles, cursed by God, degenerate, etc? And as to the end of the statement quoted above, let me correct it for you: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you try to force everyone else to (live as if they) agree with you'

The "gay marriage vs religious rights" discussion that's been in many threads here seems to have generally skipped the rights of churches if those churches support same sex marriage*. If marriage is the domain of religious institutions, then gay marriage already exists and did long before Massachusetts.

I'm not writing about UU's (which some might say aren't sufficiently religious) or SoF (which is just so tiny a group as to be dismissible by some). Episcopal, MCC and UCC--they're small denominations, but they exist. (and "small" is relative. Are the Orthodox churches "small"?)

I'm not writing about people who rented out a recreation hall on church property and the mail-order officiants who lead the ceremony.

I'm writing about people who grew up in the church, who are part of the church family, whose love and commitment to spend the rest of their lives together is celebrated by the congregation. They want a church wedding with their own minister to marry them in just the same way that many people have had. Because they're in the congregation of a denomination which has same-sex marriage, that's what they did.

If "marriage" means a religious ceremony in a church, then they're married. If they're same-sex then what they don't have is a certificate from the state, unless it happened during the summer. From the point of view of the state, the witness of all of a church's community-- pastor, wedding party, and congregation-- count for nothing if the couple are same-sex. But they are married, right?

I don't see my church telling others that they must perform wedding ceremonies even if the couple hasn't fulfilled the rules and guidelines of that other church. In contrast, in today's world and our society a wedding includes the signing and completion of the state's paperwork, and my church is most definitely forbidden to include that.

But it isn't about churches, not today, if we say that two married couples are both equally "married" or equally nothing-at-all, regardless of if they had a religious officiant or ceremony in a religious institution (instead of outdoors, or Vegas, or shipboard, or in city hall) depending only if they're same sex or not.

Now of course the Episcopal, MCC and UCC churches can be considered suspect churches because they have SSM. But having grown up with Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant relatives, all of whom considered the practices of at least one of the others to be wrong (not just "you have Christmas on the wrong date" wrong: wrong enough to prevent heaven wrong), I'm not sure how one could say that the other, "wrong" churches are not churches at all.

Because if they are churches, then what about their religious rights?
--------
* I'd asked about it in the Vermont thread.

Maggies said:

"But the two most important messages I've been telling people: 1. Marriage matters because children need a mom and dad. And 2. Gay marriage is going to effect a lot of people besides Adam and Steve."

1) If children need a mom and dad, what about single parent families, those in which one or the other parent died because of an accident, disease, or war? Should the remaining parent be forced to give up the child to a nuclear family? After all, that child needs a mom and a dad.

2) Who, precisely, is going to be affected if Adam and Steve get married? Is it you, or someone else? Will your marriage then be annulled or otherwise rendered meaningless? I suspect your spouse (assuming you have one) might be surprised to hear you answer in the affirmative. If not others' marriages, then perhaps it is children? You have already affirmed that children need a mom and dad, so in your formulation, Adam and Steve don't get to have any children anyway.

Really, your argument is so incoherent it would be laughable if it were not so damaging to real people, and to the liberty of our nation's people. The idea that you, your church, or anybody else's can tell me what I can or cannot do in the privacy of my own home, and in my relationships is highly offensive and morally objectionable. I hope one day you will understand that.

"Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'."

No, it is founded on the idea that who I choose as a partner is none of Maggie Gallagher's damned business.

How do you feel about the statement that "opposing gay marriage is a violation of the US constitution?"