STREET PREACHER PROLEGOMENA. There's been a street preacher on our campus for the last three days and much of his act is condemning gay people to damnation. Having always been fascinated by street preachers, I've been surprised and bemused with the high level of student hostility. However, my bemusement was wrong. As one of my gay colleagues informed me, gay students don't see a kind of pathetic, amusingly bigoted kind of guy in the street preacher. What many gay students at Morehead State see is someone who is replaying all the bigoted hostility they experienced from preachers, teachers, parents, and friends while they grew up in Eastern Kentucky. He's also forcing them to replay all of the pain from those fire and brimstone accusations. Bell hooks writes in "Killing Rage" that racism hurts black people like her. The same is the case with homophobia and gays.
I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't realized that earlier.
READING THE IOWA DECISION. I've always supported gay marriage. Marriage is one of the fundamental goods in American society and I've always thought that gay people should have just as much right to be married as people like me. As a liberally inclined person, I would have supported gay marriage even if I had never met a gay person (and in fact I didn't meet any openly gay people until after graduating from college--one of the perils of rural existence during the seventies). However, I have had gay friends and colleagues almost continuously since my two-year stint working in a gay bar during the 1980's. As a result, I don't view gay marriage solely as an issue for gay people as a group or social category, but also see gay marriage as an issue for people I know, like, admire, and appreciate as well as a couple of people I've fallen out with. In other words--real people.
The decision of the Iowa court to overturn the state marriage law banning same-sex marriage was interesting on several grounds. It was surprising that the court's decision was a summary judgment indicating that the county officials being sued did not meaningfully dispute the facts introduced by the couples suing over not being allowed to marry. I was also surprised that the county officials sought to introduce testimony from such a lame set of unqualified "marriage experts" who freely admitted that they hadn't read the relevant literature on gays and marriage. Finally, it was interesting that the judge argued that the courts needed to use "strict scrutiny" to evaluate the ban on gay marriage because of the fundamental nature of the right to marriage that had been established when the courts overturned the Virginia miscegenation statutes in 1967.
What was most surprising to me though was the long list of harms experienced by gay people as a result of being banned b gay marriage. Among other harms created by the harms of banning of gay marriage, the two most striking might have been the first mentioned by the court. Those were the devaluing of the relationships at the core of gay people's sexual identity and the badge of inferiority and second-class status that comes from being excluded from a pervasive institution like marriage. The court also highlighted the lack of access to what is generally recognized as the fullest expression of love and commitment in our society and went on to identify a large number of other harms.
It was all heart-breaking and eye-opening to read. I hadn't been aware of how pervasive the effect of the gay marriage ban was on gay people. The court overturned the ban on gay marriage because the law violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Iowa Constitution. What I learned was just how pervasive the effects of ignoring due process and equal protection are for gay people.
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Think this will be upheld on appeal?
Warning: making fun of JD to follow and then substantive comments and then more making fun of conservatives. Paragraph 4 contains the substantive part, JD, so you might want to skip the rest.
Everyone: take a look at that wonderful piece of excrement that is PW on this subject. The host is engaging in his word dodging and latent homophobia, and our brave JD, believer in gay marriage, has yet to pick up the cudgel against the host.I am shocked, SHOCKED.
Come on, JD, you're so brave here. Speak truth to the Goldstein (or your opinion re: Truth) and join me in the banned world!.
Ever want to see a word pretzel? Let's watch the "classic liberal" argue that some citizens don't deserve the same rights of others, because they practice different things. Reminds me of Loving v Virginia or the States Rights arguments of the early '60's: "Sure the pragmatic effect is discrimination, but what the hell, we have high-minded, fancy-pants 'ideas' to argue....even if the end result is side with the bigots. WE'RE NOT THE BIGOTS!.....We just happen to vote with them."
As to your above comment, JD, I'm not an expert in the Iowa Constitution, but the judge claims there's a pretty strong equal protection clause there. Since, the only way this gets to the 7th Circuit is if the gay folks lose, winning at the Iowa SC would seem to make Iowa the Midwest version of Vermont and Massachusetts.
Also, I agree with you in principle on your abortion point from PW (the SC's decision did short-circuit debate in the States), but for the people who see this as an important, substantive right, political consensus is unnecessary, i.e. they want their damn rights.
Still, I think I'll surf back over to PW to see if you have chastised the host for his disingenuous argument....and, of course, for the solid fear that calling gay unions marriage just "changes the definition." I suppose I don't see the danger in that, but I haven't ever thought a terrorist was hiding in my garage, like most PW commenters have.
timb - I am not a believer in gay marriage. I have no problem whatsoever with civil unions. I do not think that it is appropriate to compare homosexuality to race as you so casually do. I do not see how this is a fundamental human or civil right, but rather, as a privilege extended by the government.
I will pose this question to you. If civil unions afforded all of the perceived benefits of marriage, but were called civil unions, would that be enough. If so, then we are in agreement. If not, the semantics of the name are the hold up, and that is not likely to change on either side.
You know Ric, I've always felt that I was enlightened because I support Civil Unions. But I think perhaps I have, in my own way, clung to what I hope are the last vestiges of growing up in a particularly intolerent part of an overall intolerent and bigoted society. That preacher you spoke of is kind of a caracature of the still-simmering hatred here for gays and lesbians. I see now though that my own attitude needed adjusting. The ruling of which you spoke really gets to the heart of the matter.
In the decision Judge Robert Hanson wrote: "Couples...who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage...by reason of the fact that both persons...are of the same sex."(CNN.COM)
Hanson continues:"The law describing marriage as between a man and a woman, constitutes the most intrusive means by the state to regulate marriage. This statute is an absolute prohibition on the ability of gay and lesbian individuals to marry a person of their choosing."(CNN.COM)
I am struck for the first time at the shear arrogance displayed by those of us who are straight. We think we are so generous to "allow" people to be openly gay or if we support unions between gay and lesbian couples as long as it is not called marriage.
Judge Hanson said
it: "...describing marriage as between a man and a woman, constitutes the most intrusive means by the state to regulate marriage." He is correct. You know, conservatives love to yell and scream about "too much government", "big government", etc are the same people who would have the state intrude in the most private of relationships.
Marriage means different things to different people. Many view it as a religious covenent and base their objections to same-sex marriage on the pretzel-like logic that somehow de-criminalizing same-sex marriage will interfere with their religious freedoms. Some argue that courts will force religious denominations to marry same-sex couples even if the denomination in question believes homosexuality is wrong.
They are mistaken or they are deliberatley planting falsehoods to stir popular opinion against those against whose lifestyles they object. The fact is, no one has proposed mandating that religious denominations marry same-sex couples or any other kind of couple whom they do not deem fit to be married. This kind of law would apply to civil marriages and marriages within religions who do not forbid same-sex relationships.
At the end of the day, people ought to be able "to marry a person of their choosing."(CNN.COM)
Sexual orientation is irrelevent. People are people and equal rights for every citizen will never be fully realized until views like those Judge Hanson articulated are accepted as the reasonable and just way for our society to be organized. Justice demands no less.
Well, as I've said before, if I were a gay rights activist, I would push for gay marriage. It's right and just and does not afford the second class citizen/Plessy v Ferguson attitude that would be created by the jurisprudence for civil unions.
As an activist, though, I would know it's a long fight and I just need to win a little bit. So, I would accept the compromise of the thing you call a civil union and I would prevail later in the Courts or the Legislature when society didn't crumble.
As the last few posters (who just handed Jeff his lunch) noted at PW, these Amendments usually ban civil unions also.
If they ban civil unions, then I would happily not only vote against them, but campaign against them.
todd - Some people think it is the heighth of arrogance to attempt to redefine an institution that has evolved over thousands of years. Marriage did not come about by the stroke of a legislative pen, nor by judicial fiat. It evolved to where it is because it was determined to be most beneficial to society. I have no doubt that eventually civil unions will be the norm. But having a Judge over-rule the people and the Legislature is not the way to win, it will only engender animosity.
Personally, I think those that demand gay marriage, and those that want to ban gay marriage are equally intolerant.
JD is being a stereotypical right-winger when he tries to create a phony moral equivalence between gay rights advocates and homophobes like himself.
I should be able to say that "it's needless to say it doesn't work." However, right-wingers are so shameless in their lying that one still has to explain why their claims are wrong.
Homophobic bigots think that homosexuality is sinful, immoral, unnatural, disgusting, and animal-like (see statements by Rick Santorum on this score) and that gayness is an abomination. Having failed in their efforts to shame gay people into the closet and exclude them from employment, housing, and the like, homophobes and their right-wing fellow travelers are making a last stand with their efforts to exclude gays and lesbians from marriage.
When JD says that those who demand gay marriage are intolerant, he is implying that gay activists claim that the moral standing of heterosexuals is so weak that heterosexuals should not be allowed to be married. But the implied claim is completely false and JD can't even dredge up one quote to illustrate his point.
JD's claim about the so-called arrogance of redefining marriage is also specious. So what if marriage has "evolved over thousands of years!" Slavery, prostitution, monarchy, the nobility, and endless other institutions have evolved over thousands of years but have been completely redefined in the modern world. Every time marriage "evolved," it evolved by being redefined. In fact, the contemporary view of marriage as a love bond between equals is something that was not taken seriously by most people as little as forty years ago. If marriage is evolving as an institution, gay marriage is the obvious next step.
It may be the obvious next step, but it evolves with the consent of the people, not by decree.
What is "homophobic" about my position. Nothing. Not one fucking thing. You just like to claim some moral high ground that you do not possess.
I do not think that homosexuality is "sinful,immoral, unnatural, disgusting, and animal-like (see statements by Rick Santorum on this score) and that gayness is an abomination." So, sorry I do not fit your Caric-ature.
Professor Caric - Being the expert that you are, I suppose you will be able to point out all of the other countries that allow same sex marriage, and at what point in time in history that marriage evolved to the point where it changed who was considered to be married. It is convenient of you to ignore the historical evolution of marriage, because it does not fit your narrative.
I ask again, if civil unions can provide all of the perceived benefits of marriage, but are called civil unions, why is that not sufficient? If it is sufficient, then we agree. If it is not sufficient, then you are attempting to force your way into a historical definition of a word, by changing the definition of the word.
In other words, if it is about the benefits, we agree. If it is about forcibly changing the centuries old meaning of a word to force acceptance, then we do not agree.
Ric - I have no irrational fear of teh ghey, Professor Caric. I have several gay neighbors, several co-workers, and several close friends. Calling people bigots, racist, sexist, or homophobic because they do not agree with you is childish, and unworthy of somebody teaching at an institution of higher learning.
unworthy of somebody teaching at an institution of higher learning.
Unworthy, perhaps, but oh so typical.
On my blog and Iowan has said that a stay has been placed on marriages until the Supreme Court of Iowa has ruled on the decisions and they will almost certainly overturn it.
Yep, now a win for all of us "I am not a" homophobes. Would "suck on that" caric, be a poor choice of taunt?
"...the badge of inferiority and second-class status that comes from being excluded from a pervasive institution like marriage."
Do you believe in evolution, professer ric?
As always, a salient, wise, witty and on-post reply from B Moe? Did rehab let out early? It was nice when you weren't around.
Are you even on the right thread tim?
Yes, B Moe uses the name Michael when he posts here. Do try and keep up
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