It seems the biggest issue in the gay world this week is not the election of Barack Obama, but the protests against the vote in favor of Proposition 8.
I have my theories on why these people are rallying, but I don’t think it does much good for the cause (or the community) for people to vent in public. It makes it appear to the world that we, at least those rallying, are not ready for marriage.
And what are they so angry about? That the state won’t recognize same-sex unions as marriage? We can still call them marriage on our own. And the Golden State still recognizes and grants privileges to same-sex couples, calling them domestic partnerships instead of marriage.
I thought when I started writing this, I’d have a lot to say on the topic, but in reality there really isn’t that much to say. Instead of venting their spleen on the public stage, these people should be working on making a more thoughtful case for gay marriage.
Protesting will get you media, but it’s not likely to change minds. And given last Tuesday’s results, shouldn’t that be the goal?
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds: “GAY-RIGHTS PROTESTERS target another church. . . . This strategy seems quite unwise.” Exactly.
UP-UPDATE: Eric Scheie and I are on the same wave-length: “I’d hate to think all this fuss is over a desire for official state imprimatur, but I worry that it is. Like almost everything else (soon including the auto industry), marriage is seen as something you get from the government. Maybe it would be better to see it as something that the government cannot interfere with, the way genuine rights are.” (Via Glenn).
“a more thoughtful case for gay marriage.” That would require thought. Anyway with Bush/Hitler overthrown what else is their to take to the streets on?
GPW:
And CU or DP laws are still an option in Arizona (though I don’t think they exist yet in that state), whose voters preferred to define “marriage” as “one man, one woman” without banning legislative compromises that create “the substantial equivalent” of marriage for same-sex couples. (In 2006, Arizona social conservatives had tried to pass an amendment banning CU/DP along with SSM — which has been done in FL and VA and a number of other states. But that sweeping ban failed to pass in AZ.)
Too little, too late. I would like to know where all of this energy was when we were trying to keep the ban from being passed to begin with. People can protest all they like but they missed their chance to do anything about it. These people were lazy and caught off guard and now they are anger about it, too bad. You had all summer and fall to rally and grow support, its all a waste of time now.
Gay militants invade Michigan church, disrupt services, harass parishioners, and generally behave like obnoxious spoiled children.
I’m gay and live in the middle of the bible belt now, although I originally come from the southern San Joaquin Valley in California. I actually find the area I’m in now to be much more tolerant than my original home. I do know people here who are vehemently against gay marriage, and disapprove of homosexuality, but they also see me as an individual and I’ve never been treated less than respectfully by them. Their problem with gay marriage seems to be more with the use of the term “marriage” than with gay unions themselves. To many here in the bible belt (and probably most other places), the word marriage carries a religious connotation and applying that particular word to a gay union seems to be what sets them off. I honestly know very, very few people here where I live who have problems with gay unions being recognized just so long as they aren’t legally called marriages
Yes, I realize that we’re talking about legal definitions of marriage vs. religious beliefs about who can marry, and that the religious view should be separate from the legal definition if we want to keep religion out of government. The reality is, however, that many voters are in fact religious and have difficulty keeping some aspects of their religion out of the voting booth. The reality is what we have to deal with, though, and if we stubbornly insist that gay unions must be called “marriage” and nothing else is acceptable, we will continue to see state constitutional amendments being passed which will make the job of getting legally recognized unions of any kind more difficult. I think we need to worry first about getting our unions legally recognized while obtaining all the benefits derived through traditional marriage first, then worry about what these unions are called.
The vote in California was fairly close, and the younger generation has fewer problems with the semantics of the situation than we have seen in the older generation. The point that has been made on this website time and again that we can’t do this through the courts should be obvious by now. Court decisions only inflame opponents of gay marriage and insure defeat at the ballot box.
Left-wing politics is based on emotion. They can’t help themselves.
Al,
You imply that “difficulty keeping some aspects of religion out of the voting booth” is some sort of shortcoming. Where is it stated in the law or in the Constitution or in the philosophy of the Founders that citizens must sanitize their voting of religiously inspired moral opinion?
All voters carry an implicit religious worldview into the voting booth. Some voters are, for all intents and purposes, atheists, in that they assume societal and moral deliberations can (and must!) be made with zero reference to what God might want, either because he does not care or because he does not exist.
However, plenty of people have good reason for believing that he does exist and he does care. They have no problem with homosexuals forming relationships and privately calling them whatever they want. But they do have a problem with the use of state power to force them to commit blasphemy: equating something profane and disordered with something holy. It seems that the GLBT movement will not be satisfied until they can force others to use a term that for religious reasons they simply cannot, in good conscience, acquiesce to.
The GLBT movement needs to ask itself: What is really more important and what is really the goal? Having their relationships recognized by the state as a new institution, or putting the religious under the boot and forcing them to submit? I suspect that for at least the most militant and vociferous activists (the ones who will be driving changes in the law), the real goal is the latter. As such, I am compelled to oppose them, and I can do no other.
See this:
http://www.californiaconservative.org/liberals/gay-activist-opposes-church-protests/
Now that Obama has won, they all feel they’ve been given carte blanche to get whatever they want – despite the inconvenient fact Obama stated that He himself is against gay marriage. I can’t tell you all the conversations I’ve heard from holier-than-thou gays and lesbians about how marriage is such a joke anyway – what sanctity with all the divorce rates, etc. – well, if that’s the case, then why do you want marriage at all? Why not leave it alone for the poor hypocrits who believe in it then? To be honest, having been gay my whole life, I do not really believe that gay people want marriage – but do they want to change what marriage is, and that is what the religious folk fear, and rightly so. I would too if I were them. The gay community is not honest about its motivation. Sorry, but they are not. They need to get real. And be grateful for what they have in California, the real rights they have, and keep working to, as you said, persuade people why it would not be the end of the world for gay people to marry. But if they are doing it to be spiteful, which I believe to be the case, and to alter what marriage is for no other reason than that, then they deserve the slap in the face that they just got from the Obama-supporting black community and Latino community. Grow up, gay people.
What’s accomplished? Y’all still talking about it, the MSM still talking about it, people in general forced to consider and talk about it.
This is the purpose of all public protest.
As usual, jimmy demonstrates the mindset of the liberals, which is the one they carry over from childhood: “If we scream loud enough and long enough, we’ll get whatever we want”.
As is usual, though, society is, by and large, not nearly as feckless and spineless as their parents. Instead, gays like jimmy appear as exactly what they are: emotionally-immature children throwing temper tantrums.
You say
“And (sic) what are they so angry about? That the state won’t recognize same-sex unions as marriage? We can still call them marriage on our own. And (sic) the Golden State still recognizes and grants privileges to same-sex couples, calling them domestic partnerships instead of marriage.”
They are angry because the media tells us all that the vote was swung because obama’s blitz got so many African-American voters out who are predominantly churchgoers and cannot challenge the word of their preachers and therefore the African Americans, whom we historically have been essential in liberation, has voted to deny our own civil rights.
If we call ourselves “married”, and our friends do call us that, it is meaningless in the dollars and cents manifestation of equal rights.
Call it what you will, but we are not entitled to the same benefits and will not be until we are recognized in the federal constitution and the decision is taken away from the states.
Now Obama wants to increase the tax on “singles”, which we all are by legal definition.
Even though I have not been “single” for 25 years, I am affected by this blatant quashing of our segment of the population.
I say that because it is known how o’hussy feels about marriage being between a man and a woman. In the time that I’ve been with my partner, my brother has been married 3 times and yet his present wife of 2 years (a new Russian immigré) will get his Social Security benefits, among other benefits. when he passes.
My partner will have nothing but higher taxes.
I am not a person who hates, but I really have no use at all for Obama or Palin. Yes, Palin — although at least she is obvious and truthful about how she feels about f_ags.
Mateo:
I think you must have quit reading my comment at the religion in the voting booth point, since you criticize me for saying that and then go on to make the same point I made in the latter part of the comment. I never said that keeping religion out of the voting booth was how it should be. That religion has played such a large part in both the founding and the growth of this country and the fact that we are the most prosperous nation on earth is not coincidence. Christian values and the belief in self-determination are a large part of why we are what we are. We all take our values into the voting booth, and we all believe our values are best. My point was that the word “marriage” carries a lot of spiritual and emotional power with Christians, and if gay rights activists insist that only that word is acceptable when describing a gay union, they should probably expect to continue to see pushes for constitutional amendments.
To me, marriage is only a word that describes a union between two people, but I realize that Christians have a more specific definition of the word, which is why I said we should be working towards legally recognized unions, whatever they might be called, rather than focusing on the semantics. Please read my entire previous comment, and I think you’ll find we agree on more than we disagree on.
Al
I don’t think most gay activists and their sympathizers/sycophants really care what their detractors think of their relationships and lifestyle. The attitude I’m seeing is not one of desiring acceptance and unity within a greater society but ultimately a separate identity whose only connection would be a legal demand. That these activists are engaged in extreme behavior directed at the very society into which they claim full recognition says to me that marriage is not the issue. Marriage is the stated goal, but they want it only because it is currently denied them; the often religious consecration of traditional commitment cannot be a value to those who protest with the destruction of holy property. For these activists, the issue is not one of love and commitment or even of integration, but one of status. It is not the desire to marry that matters, only the ability. This is how marriage is cheapened and will ultimately be destroyed.
Gay leaders that are calling for these marches are just plain stupid, in my opinion.
Yes, we are still talking about it, and people are still talking about it, and NO ONE is talking about it in a way that is favorable to the gay community. Frankly, it makes me wish I could have voted for the initiative.
What people are talking about is how everything gays said prop 8 supporters were lying about is coming true.
Hold a revote, I bet it would pass with even MORE support.
#4 You beat me, I was going to post a link about that. These cretins need their heads examined. They set us back about 10 years in the eyes of some. They do not represent the majority of left thinking queers. The WorldNet Daily article called tried to smear all liberals, these folks aren’t liberal they’re lunatics.
#4: V – perhaps when these loons are done with the evangelical church, they’ll head on over to Dearborn. I hear that there are several mosques in dire need of enlightenment.
jimmy – AE is right. People ARE talking about the protests… in a “to hell with the gays” sort of way. Not exactly the right direction, is it?
I think you would run crying if you heard what people are probably saying, though. Guess what, jimmy, if you were to spit on me, we would not be “talking about it”. Nor would I pat you on the head and tell you what a good little queer you are.
#19 ‘Guess what, jimmy, if you were to spit on me, we would not be “talking about itâ€.’
TGC, isn’t that the same attitude that the protesters have? To many, what the yes on 8 vote did involved more distasteful bodily products than spit.
I feel the ones who are protesting are only embarrassing themselves. If they would have won, do they think the mormom church or any other church for that matter would be out there protesting, no, they would leave it in the hand of God. And who is to say that God did not have a hand in the no vote on 8!! Kudos to God!!!!
different Davd, if you can’t tell teh difference between a referendum passed through legal means and physical assault via a particularly disgusting method…
… I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Golly DaveP, if you can’t read what I said before drooling on your keyboard it would waste my time to try and explain it in simpler terms so you could understand.
Gee, I think you came through quite clearly: You directly equated exercising franchise with spitting on someone, or in your own language, “worse bodily fluids”.
Then, you whipped out another spit-related ad hominem on me, for pointing out the asininity of your statement.
I recommend counseling. Or maybe mouthwash.
No DaveP, what I SAID is that TGC’s implied threat of violence towards someone who spit on him is the same as the violent reaction of the protesters to the vote. I’m not at all interested in what you recommend.
And again, Dave equates voting to physical assault. It should be no surprise that he and the rest of the bigot contingent of liberal gays are now making terroristic threats and attacking religious people.
I’m amazed and saddened by people who think that protests are whining, complaining, screaming child-like behavior, etc. How do you think this country was started? How do you think that any minority gained rights in this country? They were laughed at, diminished, called lunatics, they protested because that is the only thing we can do that makes our wishes and feelings known to the public. African Americans, Women, Colonists, all these protested to attain rights. And I’m sorry if many in the LGBT community feel that these “silly” protests are self-defeating, but my generation is not willing to beg for rights, to quietly sit by while the majority is allowed to vote on the rights of the minority (which is against the fundamental point of us breaking away from England in the first place). So you may sit idlely by, be content with your domestic partnerships (and other psuedonyms for separate but not even close to equal “marriage”), pay your taxes, but don’t get tax benefits for being kinda-married, but do not criticize us for protesting. We are not going to allow this country to ban our freedoms, we will not sit down and just take it anymore. I may not agree with the way some people choose to protest, but do not deceive yourself into thinking that just because the media, and others call us names, we will stop. Women were called despicable things when they wanted the vote, african americans were called names when they wanted equal rights. Southerners were not given the right to vote on integration. . . this is no different than these things. It may take time, but it must start somewhere; equal rights are equal rights.
>>Their problem with gay marriage seems to be more with the use of the term “marriage†than with gay unions themselves. <<
i’m not gay and i don’t want to see gay people denied rights or disrespected. i don’t believe that for the voters to deny marriage that is recognized by the state is to do either.
marriage has always been for the purpose of committing the parents to seeing to the well-being of the children. it may be surrounded by all types of romantic notions, but that isn’t it.
why some gay people feel it is so important for them to have is very hard to understand. i think the real reason is they want to claim a type of social equality with the rest of society.
i don’t think that’s a good thing to do. it shows contempt for responsible people who believe in family as the basic unit of society. why would gays need it? to legitimize gayness? that’s the only reason i see.
it isn’t even a religious thing, necessarily. it’s the fact that people who are raising their own children deserve to have a status that excludes unions in which the couple think that marriage is about romantic love.
so the traditional marriage is much more important to society than a gay marriage, because it is really the foundation of society.
Why do gay people want gay marriage when it is pretty much a crumbling institution? Because marriage still comes with thousands of other benefits – legal benefits and societal benefits that we are not being given. It also would represent and important milestone for equality. Yeah, we want it because we don’t have it, and as long as we don’t have it we are being denied our constitutional protection under the laws.
So you are right. It is not really about marriage, it is about much more important principles than that.
People who are protesting Prop. 8 are protesting the sentiments that lead to it being passed and the unfair democratic process that let the majority oppress the minority.
It is also, very much, a rallying cry to get the lazy, complacent, and disenfranchised gay people – especially gay youths = off our respective butts. It’s not going to be accomplished by kicking and screaming, but it is not a bad place to start.
In response to california bob,
“it shows contempt for responsible people who believe in family as the basic unit of society. why would gays need it? to legitimize gayness? that’s the only reason i see.”
“Responsible” people. . .who exactly would that be? Because, frankly, if you think that the only responsible people are those that are straight people that believe in the “family as the basic unit of society” then you are sadly mistaken. I’ve seen many of these people who are very irresponsible, either by leaving their families, leaving their children for others to raise(grandparents), etc. But, more importantly, why wouldn’t gay people be “responsible”? Perhaps we too belive that the family is the basic unit of society, and we want our families legally recognized and protected.
Many gay people (including myself) want and have children. . .so your comment
“it isn’t even a religious thing, necessarily. it’s the fact that people who are raising their own children deserve to have a status that excludes unions in which the couple think that marriage is about romantic love.”
implies that straight couples who don’t have children should be stripped of their marriage rights and status, and applied only to those who have children. including gay people. Marriage is not based on child bearing, not for anyone…this is a bad argument, but if you want to use it…look at what it really means.
If you are a thinking person who doesn’t want to
“see gay people denied rights or disrespected,” then you would see that you are denying rights to gay people, especially those who want or have children. And you are disrespecting us by thinking that we have drastically different values than you, or that we are irresponsible members of society. We pay taxes. . . why can’t we have the same rights and privileges you have under the law?
>>We pay taxes. . . why can’t we have the same rights and privileges you have under the law?<> Marriage is not based on child bearing, not for anyone…<<
the purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children. it holds parents responsible. otherwise there would be no need for marriage.
>>People who are protesting Prop. 8 are protesting the sentiments that lead to it being passed and the unfair democratic process that let the majority oppress the minority.<<
whatever you do in your life, never try to understand someone else’s viewpoint. you’ll go a long way.
‘protesting the sentiments’? the voters are protesting Your sentiments.
‘unfair democratic process’? the issue was put to a vote. the people decided the issue. that’s unfair? not in a democracy.
in response to california bob,
“the purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children. it holds parents responsible. otherwise there would be no need for marriage.”
I don’t think you read my post…Gay people can and do have children.
Also, I think you should start protesting all marriage between straight people that either do not want to have children, or those that cannot have children. Right? No point in those people being married, and yet they do. . .
To address those who think that voting on civil rights is democratic.
First, we are only a form of democracy, this country is not actually a pure democracy, it is a Republic (you know– by the people, for the people, or Rome for example). We are not a pure democracy for a number of reasons…
One of the largest being minority rights…..there is a reason that the phrase majority rule, minority rights applies to our form of government. If we let people vote on a minority’s rights…then we are not protecting that minority. As a minority they often do not have the numbers to represent themselves in a vote. LBGT people are a minority.
We elect people, and have courts, because that is a check on the democratic process to protect minority rights……
so, california bob, if this country was a pure democracy, then I would agree with you, but it’s not.
>>“the purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children. it holds parents responsible. otherwise there would be no need for marriage.â€
I don’t think you read my post…Gay people can and do have children.<<
some do. so are you saying that the purpose of the family is not for the protection and raising of children? you walked into that one.
>>We elect people, and have courts, because that is a check on the democratic process to protect minority rights<<
it’s actually to keep government from becoming too powerful in our lives. they aren’t even looking out for the majority. it’s all about power. but there isn’t a right to gay marriage in any case.