Discussion for article #237512
After 2003 the batallions against marriage equality were well ordered, well financed, and sure to command majorities in state legislatures and at the polls. Contentment reigned supreme in discrimination-land, and the forces of heterosexual privilege were not afraid to speak out loud what their goals were and why icky homos needed to be restrained (just like the KKK was proud and out and open in the 1940s and 50s).
And today? What a sorry ghost of a once Grand Army in full retreat. Napoleon after Waterloo. They have to grind their teeth and pretend to really like the disgusting homos, at least as long as a judge is listening. If the best argument they can muster is the fear that straight parents will abandon their children if their gay neighbors marry, they might as well give up and leave that field to the Westboro idiots. It is a bit early to break out the champagne, but not too early to put it into the fridge, just in case.
And cheers to the strategists at the HRC and elsewhere. It was a stroke of genius to change the battle cry from “same-sex marriage” to “marriage equality”. Others are taking a leaf out of their book. In Germany the debate is raging after the Irish vote as well, and the gay rights organization have switched the slogan from “same-sex marriage” to “marriage for everyone” (“Ehe für alle”). It may sound a bit naive and pathetic, but to me it is the sound of progress on the march!
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Republicans know firsthand about gay men targeting children, don’t they Denny Hasturd?
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Furthermore, in many places, constitutional amendments limiting marriage to straight couples were passed on top of legislative measures already in place banning gay marriage.
What’s most interesting about this? It was the adoption of the constitutional bans that gave equality groups the ability to file Federal suits. Law of Unintended Consequences. The adoption of constitutional bans sped up the process of equality by 10-15 years. The opponents of equality brought about that which they most feared.
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Imagine the irony if the Supremes issue their decision on marriage equality today, the anniversary of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, June 18, 1815
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I’m hoping they issue it like they issued the Lawrence decision: The Friday of Gay Pride weekend in Houston. You should have seen that street party!
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Just how big a sin is hate? I mean, seriously? Love between two individuals who happen to have the same hangidoos is a bigger sin than hate? I don’t think so. Not on this planet.
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God loves everyone , people don’t : end of .
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queers…“not based on prejudice against gay people”
Surprised that a corporate tool like Alito would skate so close to rhetorical fantasy while benched and enrobed…but old prejudice dies hard for some.
FYI, an elderly nun, a close friend of my Mother’s with a religious career that would suggest greater sophistication and understanding, recently made a remark about gay people that so shocked my Mother she wouldn’t repeat it to me. She did tell the nun, a friend of 70 years who has known me since I was a toddler and has met my partner, that if she continues expressing this type of hatred their friendship would have to end. The nun apologized but her friend’s negative remark has added to my poor Mother’s concerns with a church she’s been a part of for 8 decades.
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Republicans are shameless as well as heartless. This is yet another preposterous argument, like Citizens United, the abortion spin, guns don’t kill and religion belongs in government.
They have one goal and that is to get to the levers of power. If they have to recruit otherwise kind people by riling them up over issues that aren’t issues and turn them into radicals, then so be it. Just because the government hasn’t ever and will never come and take their guns, it’s no matter, it’s best to be prepared for when it does eventually happen. Likewise, just because a gay union has never had the slightest affect on any hetero marriage, it’s no matter, best to stop what will never matter before it matters. Ignore the fact that Republican lawmakers don’t allow guns near them in their place of work and all too often are caught in some hypocritic same sex scenario.
Just vote based on perceived fears and untruths not on the easily understood facts because God would want hate supposedly for all the right reasons, which also makes no sense.
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Unfortunately there are five a$$holes on the court, and they’re all homophobes, bought and paid for by the right.
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Won’t happen today. Clarence Thomas has a do not disturb sign on his door while he does empirical research on the topic… Video of the day: Lesbian on the Bench 12
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“Yet one justice seemed very receptive to the argument that gay marriage bans were not the result of animus toward gays, pointing to ancient Greece and suggesting that the Greeks were open to gay relations while not not allowing gay marriage.”
Justice Alito seems in the dark about how the ancient Greeks viewed “gay relations.” Research suggests:
–Men were assumed to be attracted to both males and females. They weren’t expected to choose.
–It was far more acceptable for adult men to have sex with boys than other adult males.
–Adult men who were penetrated were often viewed to have the status of women, especially if penetrated by a younger man.
–Anal sex between a man and a woman was basically a form of birth control.
Unaware, ugly and stupid is no way to go through life, Justice.
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It is a bit early to break out the champagne, but not too early to put it into the fridge, just in case.
It may be too early for the champers, but I’m going to make some popcorn for the Alito tantrum in the dissent.
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Someday, someday, hatred will stop … I hope.
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After 2003 the batallions against marriage equality were well ordered, well financed, and sure to command majorities in state legislatures and at the polls…And today? What a sorry ghost of a once Grand Army in full retreat. Napoleon after Waterloo.
Well, that’s in large part due to what the article ignores in a massive oversimplification. While there’s no question that the advocates for the bans, like those quoted, were and are motivated solely by hating on the gays, they only won everywhere for so long because there was a large portion of the population that was broadly in favor of nondiscrimination but saw marriage as too big a change. Bear in mind that same-sex marriage wasn’t considered an issue by almost anyone before the 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court decision. And the reason they’re now losing is that nearly everyone who supports equality on other things, like employment, has come to realize that marriage is an integral part of that and the world won’t end if two men get married.
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I dare say, Athenians, that someone among you will reply, “Why is this, Socrates, and what is the origin of these accusations of you: for there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All this great fame and talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, why this is, as we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.” Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavor to explain to you the origin of this name of “wise,” and of this evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, such wisdom as is attainable by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit, and will tell you about my wisdom - whether I have any, and of what sort - and that witness shall be the god of Delphi. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether - as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt - he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of this story.
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After a long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, “Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.” Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed to him - his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination - and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same. I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
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As CharlieBrown once opined:
I love mankind
It’s people I can’t stand.
Oh yes, absolutely. It is amazing to consider that it is not that long ago when SSM seemed to be some freak show for most people and nothing which deserved even serious consideration. And in 2003 I would never have bet money that only a dozen years later the battle would be over, for all practical purposes.
As almost always with minorities, the key is actually knowing the minority. It is much easier to discriminate in abstract than to discriminate against Bob and John next door who have this new lawn mower you like to borrow. Coming out in massive numbers was probably a major game changer for the huge part of the population who didn’t really care one way or another. Coming out everywhere AND the example of Massachusetts (which did not disappear into the ocean) was something the forces of bigotry could not conquer. Well, and the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment with its pesky equal protection clause…
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“[T]he State’s whole point is that we’re not drawing distinctions based on the identity, the orientation, or the choices of anyone,” John J. Bursch, the solicitor general of Michigan.
A more false statement could not be made in a court of law. State Rep. Dave Agema, the sponsor of Michigan Proposal 04-02, has repeatedly made statements that are derogatory and homophobic about gay people – both during the legislative debate and afterwards – calling them “perverts” and likening them to child molesters, to make unequivocally clear that the law was targeted exclusively at homosexuals and attempting to restrict their right to marry.