The Hate Amendment

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andrewgd
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The Hate Amendment

Post by andrewgd » Feb 27th 2004, 6:07 am

Preznit Bush wrote:In recent months . . . some activist judges and local officials have made an aggressive attempt to redefine marriage. In Massachusetts, four judges on the highest court have indicated they will order the issuance of marriage licenses to mixed race couples in May of this year. In San Francisco, city officials have issued thousands of marriage licenses to couples of differing colors. A county in New Mexico has also issued marriage licenses to applicants of different colors. And unless action is taken, we can expect more arbitrary court decisions, more litigation, more defiance of the law by local officials, all of which adds to uncertainty.

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.

An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern. And the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance. The union of a couple of the same race is the most enduring human institution, honoring -- honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a racially united couple to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union between a couple of the same race. The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.

America is a free society, which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions. Our government should respect every person, and protect the institution of marriage. There is no contradiction between these responsibilities. We should also conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger.
Imagine the response he would have gotten for that speech. It is absolutely appalling that OUR PRESIDENT can even THINK about changing our constitution to include an item that TAKES AWAY rights and freedoms from our citizens. He should be absolutley ashamed of himself. This has to be the lowest point in our Presidential history in decades.
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Post by starbug » Feb 27th 2004, 12:46 pm

Scratch my post - I've re-read, and I'm just stunned.

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Post by Dave Reed » Feb 27th 2004, 2:20 pm

starbug wrote:Scratch my post - I've re-read, and I'm just stunned.
It's truly an amazing statement, especially from a then-Presidential candidate in 2000 who, in a TV interview, stated that he wasn't going to get drawn into this, which he called a state matter. It's too bad that he can't be consistent, which he alluded to in a previous speech in an attack on John Kerry.

Allegedly, Clinton signed some sort of "Protection of Marriage Act" in 1996. I have yet to look around to check the validity or history of this.
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Post by GaryEA » Feb 27th 2004, 2:46 pm

Andrewgd, where did that speech come from?

Though I haven't read it thoroughly, here is a rundown of the "Marriage Protection Act" of 1996.

If this is the same act that Dave alluded to, it's no better than what Bush is calling for.

Which leads me to wonder; Why does anyone, outside of the parties that want to be married, give a damn? The radio has had a stream of on-the-street, anonymous interviews of people saying that gay marriages aren't "normal", and that just because "they" (the aforementioned wedding parties) want to "act that way" (not my words), it shouldn't "land in my lap". Again, not my words.

Sounds like NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - an old George Carlin notion. In this case, it means "Yeah, go ahead, be gay all you want, but the minute it crosses my line, I want nothing to do with it."

Heaven forbid. :roll:

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Post by andrewgd » Feb 27th 2004, 4:03 pm

Sorry, I should have made myself more clear when I posted that. That is the exact speech that Bush gave a couple of days ago about his support for the gay marraige ban amendment. All I did was change some wording so instead of the issue being gay marraige, it was interracial marraige. I did this, not to try and fool anyone, but to take the firey issue of homosexuality out of it, and make it something that is more accepted now, but was once just as controversial issue.

Its all about basic rights here, and protecting them FOR ALL.

Again, sorry if I caused confustion by changing some of the text. I did it to be ironic and pointed at the same time. I figured enough people would have heard about this mighty uproar from the religious fright, and made the connection.
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Post by Nothingman » Feb 27th 2004, 5:22 pm

I fail to see how this is a constitutional issue, it’s a social issue. Perhaps it is because I live in a place where there are very few openly gay couples and I have little exposure to them. But even if you are uncomfortable with them, what legal title they have doesn’t change anthing, you’d still be a homophobe. Bush talks about protecting and honoring the most enduring human institution. Is that really his job? You want to protect the sanctity of marriage fine, but lets look at what’s really damaging it. We’ve turned marriage into reality TV shows that pay contestants to get married, and we get marital counseling on Jerry Springer, it’s no wonder 1 in 2 marriages fail. It is society’s job to protect the integrity of marriage not the gov’t. This is how Bush operates, he makes personal decisions that affect us all and then tries to market them to us so he can do them. He’s not a president for the people. To him, we are here to serve his causes.
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Post by lance » Feb 28th 2004, 8:41 pm

Dave Reed wrote:
starbug wrote:Scratch my post - I've re-read, and I'm just stunned.
It's truly an amazing statement, especially from a then-Presidential candidate in 2000 who, in a TV interview, stated that he wasn't going to get drawn into this, which he called a state matter. It's too bad that he can't be consistent, which he alluded to in a previous speech in an attack on John Kerry.

Allegedly, Clinton signed some sort of "Protection of Marriage Act" in 1996. I have yet to look around to check the validity or history of this.
Yup,

Especially amazing since back in the 2000 campaign he at first refused to meet with Log Cabin Republicans, then changed his mind and met with them. He said that he enjoyed his time speaking to them.

All politicans flip flop to one extent or another. I think in this case he showing how badly his Administration is doing in this campaign. As John Edwards and John Kerry pointed out: he can't talk about jobs (nearly 3 million gone), he can't talk about Iraq (no WMDs, 540+ dead American military people, over 3,000 wounded), and he can't talk about the environment (too busy trashing that). So what's a desperate politican to do: wedge issue.

This admenment idea is also an easy cop out. After all the President has nothing to do with the process: its entirely in the hands of Congress and then the state legislatures. Many Republican Congressmen and Senators have expressed skepticism or outright opposition to this idea. A couple of conservative pundits including David Brooks and William Sapphire have both spoken out against this idea.

I think time and the American public is against this idea. This was a purely political bone for his base.

I agree with Andrewgd this is a hateful, spiteful move on the President's part. I have gay and lesbian friends and co-workers. They deserve the same legal protections with their relationships. This isn't just about committment between two loving, consenting adults. This also about inheritance rights, hospital visitation, health insurance, child custody and the other protections and responsibilities that many straight couples take for granted.

In January the Florida Supreme Court ruled that gay or lesbian couples cannot legally adopt children. This despite the fact that one gay man in Florida is the foster guardian for 9 troubled teens. The state says its okay for him to raise the kids nobody else wants to raise, but he can't adopt them.

The fact is that gay and lesbian households have been raising healthy, normal children for decades. According to Ralph Neas, President of the People for the American Way, one million children are currently being raised in gay and lesbian households, right now. The American Psychological Association has released studies that children raised in gay and lesbian households are just healthy and well adjusted as children raised in straight households. There is nothing to fear here.

Gay marriange or civil unions are not a threat to anybody. Straight marriages in this country have long suffered from a 50% divorce rate that has nothing to do with gay people.

You don't have to like Gay sex or relationships or even know gay people. They are human beings, like everybody else, who simply want to live their lives the best they can.

My two cents,

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Post by starbug » Mar 1st 2004, 5:16 am

Ah, OK, I geddit - I sort of suspected that you'd changed the words Andrew, but I couldn't be sure... and you never know, with this prez.

Anyway, so here are my tuppence-worth on the prohibition of gay marriage...
I did a course on family law and during it we looked at the possibility of widening marriage to include anybody who wanted to make that kind of life-long commitment to another person but who can't do so under UK law. Specifically we looked at gay couples but also trans-gender couples. So what I say here is based on UK law but I doubt the US law is so very different, and particularly because lots of it is based on social and philosophical rather than legal or constitutional issues, as nothingman said.

- when you actually look at the basis for marriage, how can you rationally prohibit it to same-sex couples?

if, as some people argue, it's not 'natural' because they can't produce children, do we dream for a second that any of those people would probibit marriage on the grounds that the couple were infertile? no, of course not. No-one has the least compunction about infertile or elderly (and thus incapable of reproduction) couples marrying. Gay and lesbian couples may not be biologically capable without assistance but that doesn't mean they can't be loving parents.

what about the simple, basic, 'one man, one woman' argument? Where did that come from? history, and that's it. Because something used to be considered 'right' does not mean it should considered right forever. As Andrewgd demonstrated with changing the text. Plus, in UK law it is perfectly legal for a male-female transsexual to marry a woman. and vice versa. It doesn't matter what gender you are NOW, it only matters what you were when you were born ie what it states on your birth certificate. How dumb is that?

If you believe in Bentham's 'harm' principle, then what is there to probibit gay marriages on this count? are they harming anyone? IMO, nope. Makes no difference to my life. My sensibilities might be offended if I were a less tolerant person.. big deal; that's not enough for true 'harm'. Are children 'harmed' by having gay parents? absolutely no evidence of it. Apart from possibly dealing with teasing at school, and that's a chicken and egg situation. You stop people marrying on that basis, it will still be unusual. Children with gay parents will be teased. You make it accepted, and normal by changing the law, and over years it will become accepted and normal and no basis for teasing. something has to break the cycle.

Quite apart from all the stuff above, there's another thing to throw into the mix here. You could give gay and lesbian couples 'registered partnerships' and put them on the same legal footing as a marriage. Just don't call it marriage. Most gay people I know don't particularly want to be 'married', just to have the same rights as everyone else and not face disadvantage because of their sexuality. Although I don't believe in this approach as it backs away from the issue, it might be one step along the road to equality.

Anyway, let's hope the american people shove a big fat election loss at Bush soon.
:D
Last edited by starbug on Mar 1st 2004, 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by andrewgd » Mar 1st 2004, 10:34 am

starbug wrote:You could give gay and lesbian couples 'registered partnerships' and put them on the same legal footing as a marriage. Just don't call it marriage.
Thats what I thought for a long time, but in the last month I've realized that there have been rulings against being "separate but equal" and that there's a good reason for it.

Blacks got their own schools, they got their own drinking fountains...heck, they even had their own entrances. Whats wrong with that, huh? :P Thats how separate but equal starts heading down the wrong slope.

90% of the population opposed same sex marraige when it was ruled legal. Right now only 60% of the population opposes gay marraige (and that number drops drastically when it is civil unions, so not all of them are violently against the idea).

I have to say, after watching all the talking heads on tv in the last week (gay marriage, Passion, FCC), that William Donohue, head of the Catholic League is one of the most hateful, bitter men I've ever seen. The pure hate dripping from his lips was utterly disgusting. He had literally yelled himself red in the face, and began spitting while he talked.

Keep that in mind this guy looked like a worked up Archie Bunker (I tried to bold where I remembered him frothing):
Andy Rooney is part of the gerontocracy of these old men over there at “60 Minutes.” They should retire, give a young person an opportunity to get a job over there at CBS. The fact of the matter is, the media elite have an aversion to religion. Some of them even have a phobia and some of them are obviously anti-religion. They‘re different categories here.

We know this from the work of Stanley Rothman and others, who have studied the media elite for years. And now it‘s all coming home to roost. They want Tom, Dick and Harry to get married. They want “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. They don‘t want anybody to see “The Passion of the Christ.” It‘s all tied together.

And we are at a cultural tipping point. And I do think that people of faith—and I mean Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims—will control this culture in the end. And it will be a better culture, because we‘re going to get rid of the filth. And these people who are trying to silence it, these censors, these left-wing censors who always like the violence in “Private Ryan.” They liked sadomasochism in the movie “Quills.” They have no problem with violence in “Schindler‘s List.”

But when it comes to the violence in this movie, oh, my God, they become the new Puritans. We now know that, along with cigarettes, they don‘t like certain forms of violence.

Look, 85 percent of the country is Christian. Most people believe in God. Most people believe in heaven and earth and hell. But there has been an animus, a very strong animus, in the publishing world, amongst the academics in the college campuses. Most of them believe in nothing, including college campuses, by the way. I won‘t forget them, and especially the theologians, who seem to know nothing.

Most of them don‘t even recognize the divinity of Christ. There‘s a big subject there, isn‘t there, all the great bigwigs who have written all these books about him. No, there‘s a real animus. These people are revolted by creches on public property. They don‘t want to see a menorah on public property.

By god, pornography, you know that? That‘s a matter of freedom of speech. We have got a twisted bunch of elites in this country. And guess what? They‘re losing. They‘re going down big-time, because the people of the street, the average American, the average Catholic, Protestant and Jew is fed up. They‘re saying time out with all this nonsense of defending Justin Timberlake and all the other trash.
My ex girlfriend was catholic, and I respected it, but I was tempted after seeing this guy on tv to write to the Catholic League and tell them its no wonder people get the wrong impression about them. After watching his performance, I would end up thinking Catholicism was all about hate and loathing for the fellow man, and not compassion.

Alright, enough of hijacking my own thread off topic.
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Post by starbug » Mar 1st 2004, 10:42 am

andrewgd wrote:
Thats what I thought for a long time, but in the last month I've realized that there have been rulings against being "separate but equal" and that there's a good reason for it.

Blacks got their own schools, they got their own drinking fountains...heck, they even had their own entrances. Whats wrong with that, huh? :P Thats how separate but equal starts heading down the wrong slope.
Yeah, I hear you. That's why I don't think it's the answer - just a temporary first step in gaining equality. I do see your slope argument though... definitely. That's why I think that solution would be backing away from the issue, and I don't agree with it.

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Post by fnordboy » Mar 1st 2004, 11:37 am

starbug wrote:Yeah, I hear you. That's why I don't think it's the answer - just a temporary first step in gaining equality. I do see your slope argument though... definitely. That's why I think that solution would be backing away from the issue, and I don't agree with it.
I totally agree with Andrew. We can not allow this "first step" to happen. It will do no good. Look at "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the military. "Yeah, you can join the military, but sure as hell don't say that you are gay. We don't want to know that your type is in here with us!" It is a complete cop out and has gotten us absolutely nowhere. It only makes the masses think that the problem is solved, when it absolutely is not.

It boggles my mind why anybody has any objections with 2 guys or 2 girls getting married. They don't have to marry them. It is a complete non-issue in reality. Gays and Lesbians already can adopt kids, my cousin and her partner have two beautiful adopted children. So that can't be the issue. What, they don't like the fact that two people of the same sex can share dental coverage?!? :shock: Oh no! The horror!

It is a religious issue. So it should be up to the churches if they want to allow gay marriage ceremonies or not. If they don't; oh well go elsewhere.

Did anyone watch Bill Maher over the weekend? This lady (i forgot who right now) was on saying that if we allow gay marriage it will basically destroy our civilization. Every civilization in the past that allowed this "decadence" met it's end. :shock: :lol: WTF?

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Post by starbug » Mar 1st 2004, 12:36 pm

fnordboy wrote:It is a religious issue. So it should be up to the churches if they want to allow gay marriage ceremonies or not. If they don't; oh well go elsewhere.
Is it a religious issue though? You can have a perfectly legal non-religious marriage... at the moment, the state isn't allowing any kind of gay marriage. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote...

I don't see it as a religious issue at all; more of an 'ignorant bigot' issue.

And yeah, I agree with you about the registered partnerships thing: I was just putting it out there as an option to consider. I already said I think it ignores the real issue.

I too completely fail to see what the problem is with gay marriage. The only thing I could think of apart from the sort of rabid frothing already detailed in this thread, is in a tax sense; in the UK spouses have way more tax breaks than cohabiting couples - I'm assuming it's the same in the US. Is the government really just trying to look after its tax pot? I really hope that's not the case.

Or maybe the rabid frothing is considered enough of a justification...?

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Post by andrewgd » Mar 1st 2004, 1:06 pm

Marriage isn't purely a religous institution, and hasn't been for a while. You can get a judge to marry you, and like it has been said, there are hundreds of state benefits to being married. Ultimately, I think the solution would be to change everything about state marriages into civil unions, and leave marraiges to the religions. People who get married in a church need to get a civil union as well (just paperwork) to make it "legal" according to the state. And then people who want nothing to do with the church can get civil unions. As long as the state doesn't endorse marriages without civil unions, they'd be fine.

Technically, that sounds workable. But there's no way I'm going to get "civil unionized" instead of "married". And I doubt many others would either. Plus there'd be so much to have to fix along the way. Everything we now know as marraige would have to be changed to civil unions...

Messy. Just let'em get married already ;)

Also; Gay couples adopting is only allowed in a few states. And one of the only arguements I can see against allowing same sex marriages is that roomates could get "married" to get the benefits. Doesn't make much sense...but there you go...
Last edited by andrewgd on Mar 1st 2004, 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by fnordboy » Mar 1st 2004, 1:11 pm

starbug wrote:Is it a religious issue though? You can have a perfectly legal non-religious marriage... at the moment, the state isn't allowing any kind of gay marriage. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote...
Well I say it is a religious issue because the only people I see having a problem with this are the religious people in this country. Primarily the hardcore Christians. The people in power that are having the problems with this (ie Bush) are very openly part of the religious right.

As much as people try to deny it this is a country heavily based on Christian influence. Look also at the issue over the Pledge.

It is definitely, as you said, an 'ignorant bigot' issue, but the root of that comes from religion IMO. Maybe this is my anti-religious stance putting a spin on it, but this is how I, and others I know, see it.

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Post by andrewgd » Mar 1st 2004, 1:26 pm

I think we just need to sit ol' Mr. Bushie down and prop open his eyes Clockwork Orange style, and force him to watch Queer as Folk. That'd break his mind good. And then it would show him that gay people are (really cool and funny) people too. (Oh, and that lesbians are hot :P ) [/generalization]
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