Ask Dr. Liberal
A reader writes:
Dear Dr. Liberal,
I’m having a little trouble getting worked up about the passage of Proposition 8 in California which made same sex marriage illegal. I’m as liberal as they come, but this is a democracy and the voters of California have spoken. Right? Also, I guess I don’t get what is so great about marriage in the first place. Civil unions seem to work fine to me and they don’t get everyone in a tizzy. Does this line of thinking make a lousy liberal?
Not Freaked in Felton
Dear Not Freaked,
Lousy? Maybe. But I guess it is easy for you to be blasé in the liberal bastion of Felton Delaware. I kid. Actually, I really see where you are coming from because you forgot one additional reason to not be freaked out. It is pretty much a done deal that gay marriage is going to be no big whoop in about ten years. The kids don’t seem to mind it and as more and more gays turn up on your local PTA executive committee and as candidates for Insurance Commissioner, the people who really hate the gays are becoming America’s fastest shrinking minority. I see the California “yes on prop 8” voters sitting in their horse and buggies shaking their little fists at those newfangled automobiles. It is all over but the flouting.
Having said that, there are a couple of reasons that people are pretty pissed off about the passage of this backward looking proposition, and they are things you should consider. For one thing, Churches lied their asses off to pass the thing. (Just like Christ would have wanted them to do.) There were lots of TV ads and direct mail mailers claiming that churches would be forced to hold gay marriage ceremonies regardless of the churches teachings on the topic. That was and is a flat out lie. Churches can marry or not mary anybody they want.
For another thing the gay marriage question was settled by a CA Supreme Court decision and having that decision overturned by a a dishonest campaign funded by deep pocketed out of state interests blows. Finally, although the distinction between “civil union” and “marriage” seems semantic to you and me – it isn’t semantic to a whole lot of people and so my sense of Christian charity compels me to defer to them on the topic.
I hope that helps you get your rage on.
Sincerly,
Dr. Liberal
I’m as liberal as they come
Ha ha. So shouldn’t Democracy allow a majority of voters to select what civil rights minorities are allowed to have? Particularly theocratic majorities?
Does this line of thinking make a lousy liberal?
Uh, yes.
Great post Jason!
It’s blatant discrimination against Unitarian Universalists, who were part of the founding and fabric of this nation. Why do we pick and choose which religions are allowed to define marriage?
I definitely agree Jason that gay marriage will be no big deal, I’m not sure if it will be within 10 yrs., but it will happen. I agree with X Stryker that simple majorities shouldn’t be able to decide who gets civil rights – wasn’t this country founded on protecting the minority? The “America is a Christian nation” folks don’t remember that America was founded by people fleeing religious discrimination, that’s why the founders were so diligent about putting freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.
I think that the church actions may have gone too far this time. It seems to producing a backlash. We’ll see if it is sustained.
Sure it’s F’n okay if you are a hetero. You don’t have to wait, you can have a civil marriage, common law marriage or a church marriage.
You can just sit there and theorize when a group of American citizens will be granted a civil right.
You are so typical.
OK, let’s be honest about this, because so far, the discussion — almost everywhere — has not been honest. California and several other states have some form of civil unions or domestic partnerships legislation, in place, which basically grant to same-sex couples who register for them the same rights the state confers upon married couples. There might be a slight difference in a particular case, but those differences can be addressed by legislation.
And civil unions simply are not that controversial in most places. If Californians had been voting to approve a civil unions statute (a hypothetical; they already have a domestic partners law), it would almost certainly have been approved by a wide margin.
The fact is that this is not about rights at all; this is about respect! The advocates of same-sex marriage are upset about one thing, and one thing only: their relationships are not recognized as marriages. They are fighting over the word marriage, because that word denotes societal acceptance of their relationships as being just as good as heterosexual relationships!
That, my friends, is the real point of contention. A solid majority of Californians, and a majority of Americans in every other state where this issue has come to a plebiscite vote, have said that, yes, they tolerate same sex relationships (in that there’s no serious call to legally punish same sex couples), but no, we don’t accept them as “just as good as” heterosexual relationships.
That is the real meaning of the California vote; we ought to be honest enough to admit that.
And to think that Negros and Whites couldn’t marry in some states in 1967. That Dana is the conservative rule of law.
I find it interesting that Dana invoked “honesty” in defense of a plainly dishonest campaign to misrepresent what the vote was about.
Jason, I went to DP to pull up David Anderson’s latest abomination about gay marriage. I thought you would be interested in reading it, but I couldn’t get past the header.
Well, Jason, just with which part did you disagree. You know that in the civil union states, all the rights of marriage accrue, so that part of my argument holds absolutely true.
Rather than sniping, tell us what part of what I wrote you believe to be untrue.