Good News For Equality
Posted by
Kevin
California might not vote to enshrine discrimination into the state Constitution:
The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.
In the long term, this appears to be a done deal, at least in California:
The poll found a strong generational gap on the issue, with those aged 18-29 approving of gay marriage by 68 percent and those 65 or older disapproving by 55 percent.
I have said this before, but my kids are going to look back on the anti-equality forces with the same mix of contempt, disgust, and confusion that I look back on people like Nixon and Bull Connor. There is no good reason to deny homosexuals equality in civil marriages. None. There are only vague notions that expanding the number of married people somehow weakens the institution of marriage (and if the illogic of the notion doesn’t turn you off the notion, the big fat lack of decline in marriage in Mass and Denmark and Canada should), tradition (as if an old bad idea is somehow made good my the passage of time) and religious based condemnations. A religious objection is a perfectly acceptable reason for a church to refuse to marry homosexuals but it is not and cannot be a reason for denying equality in civil rights to homosexuals. That way lies the politics of division, of religious bigotry, and of “my God can beat up your God”. Unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise, different classes of people shold be treated as equally as is humanly possible.
Fear of the future, hatred of people not like you, and your own personal religious preferences do not qualify as very good reasons. it is heartening to see that simple truth becoming more and more accepted.
My life partner and I feel we have all the rights that everyone else has. What rights do normal people have that homosexuals don’t have?
Comment 5/28/2008
The right to a civil marriage. One would have thought that would be clear from Kevin’s post (assuming you live under a rock and were unaware that homosexuals do not have this right.) Next question.
OK. We all know your next post, so let me save time and address it now. If the law were such that everyone were free to marry someone of the same sex, but not of the opposite sex, would you be satisfied that you had equal rights? And this will be the hard part for you to grasp. Equal in this sense does not mean identical. It means equivalent. It means fair.
Comment 5/28/2008
I have never heard anybody argue against gay marriage without bringing up religion. They might say that homosexuality is “against nature,” but they mean against God (or their interpretation of His will). If marriage is a religious institution, then the government should not be involved. The government should only issue civil unions to couples (homosexual or heterosexual), and then churches or other groups can perform weddings and declare people married.
Comment 5/28/2008
Elaine wrote: “If marriage is a religious institution, then the government should not be involved.”
Marriage is first and foremost, a civil institution. One needs to get a license from the state to marry. Those who officiate marriages, whether a justice of the peace or a cleric, needs to be licensed by the state. It is the state that determines guidelines for inheritance, health proxy, child support and the like. If someone wants to have a religious mood to their ceremony they have the option of a church wedding etc., but in fact, it’s window dressing.
Comment 5/28/2008
“…cleric, needs to be licensed by the state”
Wrong. Clerics are not licensed by the state.
Comment 5/28/2008
I stand corrected. The laws regarding who may perform marriages varies from state to state. Some states require ministers to register before being permitted to officiate at weddings. It is the state that issues licenses, requires the couples to be registered as married, determines who is qualified to officiate at weddings and determines whether specific marriages are legal.
Comment 5/28/2008
Civil marriage, not civil unions.
Comment 5/28/2008
Another point about the future of the ballot question is that support for them usually declines as a campaign goes on - which means that, it the normal pattern in followed, that “no” vote will grow.
Comment 5/28/2008
That’s what I get for doing it in a rush: That was supposed to be
“if the normal pattern is followed.”
Comment 5/28/2008