The Gay Marriage Debate – Please, Not Again! – OK, Then Off Come the Kid Gloves
Dave Muskera, M.A.
May 19, 2008
I´ve had it up to you-know-where! When writing about gay issues, I generally try to be polite and politically correct. Usually, I aim for an "educational" approach in hopes of getting across some ideas to those who may have never considered this or that "fact" about gays and homosexuality or had only been exposed to lies and distortions - especially from the media and organized religion. But, I´ve reached my limit…at least for this month. I´m fed up with people who think they have a right to ram down other people´s throats their particular brand of religious belief - which is usually nothing but bigotry wrapped in a Bible. I´m tired of my life and loves being vilified by fundamentalist freaks with puffy hair and uptight depressive smiles while they pork and get BJs from any two-legged critter they can fit behind their preacher podiums. I´m fed up with my relationships being tossed aside by mainstream society as unimportant, a charade, sick, ingenuine, "fake" or what the hell other words come to the pea-brained minds of idiots who won´t even take the time to review a bit of unbiased history. I´m incensed at the wealth of the Catholic Church and the Nazi-like opinions of the new pope who sits atop one of the most corrupt institutions in the history of humankind while saying I and other gay people "suffer an objective disorder". What holy crap! He needs to clean up his own house, not spend his time vilifying good people. And what is this idiocy of it´s OK and not a sin to be gay…but just don´t do gay sex stuff…that´s a no-no and a "sin". How stupid can you get?
So what, in particular, has ignited my fuse this time? Well, it´s the gay marriage thing again and the recent decision by the California Supreme Court (a bunch of conservative Republican appointees by the way) that holds that California´s Constitution is wrong to bar gay people from the civil institution of marriage. No, I´m not opposed to this decision. In fact, it´s been long in getting here and obviously very welcomed by all of the tax paying gay citizens of this supposedly "free" country who have the audacity to want their relationships legally recognized and want to partake of the civil benefits and responsibilities of marriage. What´s got me going today is the crappy yappy media (the supposed liberal media at that) once again grabbing on to this gay marriage issue and banging the drum in a fevered effort to convince everyone that it´s going to be of great importance in the upcoming election. Like they have done all through the campaign - attacking candidates on unimportant matters while glossing over the big stuff. By the way, if anyone still buys into the myth of the "liberal media", they are pretty darn stupid or too lazy to do a bit of research....Hey, just check out who "owns" the media and who really is calling the shots...it ain´t the liberal elite of Hollywood that´s for sure. Why else do you suppose the media has been so kind to our nearly brain dead and eternal frat-boy president? (Humm…maybe I should add I don´t mean to insult either the brain dead or frat boys by this comment – please forgive)
The media, now having the gratitude and endorsement of the fundamentalist right (who are about to wet their short with happiness), hopes to use the gay marriage debate as a wedge and distraction, counting that the public will once again be addled enough to buy into this crap and see gay marriage as an issue outweighing the reality of the mess that has been made by Bush & Company in the middle-east and the continuing decline of our home economy. What´s it going to take to get their attention - to convince these anti-gay marriage obsessed idiots that banning gays from getting married does absolutely nothing to solve economic or security problems in this country. Maybe gas at $6.00 a gallon and milk at $5.00 a quart? Will that do it? Are the far right and the Republicans who claim them as base going to once again get away with tricking voters into endorsing or rejecting candidates solely on the basis of where the candidate stands on the gay marriage issue? I´m almost afraid to consider that question for too long. I´ve just about lost faith in the "wisdom" of the electorate....if it every had any. After all, where´re just coming off the presidency of a man twice "elected" by "voters" to the highest office in the free world who can´t even speak a complete, grammatically correct sentence and probably has not had an original thought since devising a panty-raid plan when he was a college fraternity boy. By the way, I hear that plan failed too...I guess it foretold his future. We should have listened. He never did really grow up. I know, that´s hard to do when your brain has been picked in alcohol and "other substances". I´ve also just about bought into some of the conspiracy theorists who suggest our votes don´t count anyway after they are swallowed by the electronic throats of voting machines produced, shipped and software controlled by companies that have heavy vested interest in outcomes. OK, I´m drifting off topic. Sorry.
I´m also really gut-wrenchingly sick of hearing about the "will of the people". Any literate person who takes the time to read a bit of history will easily conclude that the will of the people can and often has quickly become "mob rule". Some of the most atrocious actions in human history have been perpetuated by the will of the majority. The will of the people is not the gold standard some would have you believe. It was never intended by the founding fathers that individual minority civil rights be determined by "the will of the people". Can you say "Bill of Rights"?
So don´t talk to me about having voters getting a chance to express their bigoted misinformed mush-minds and altering some state constitution as being an example of the "will of the people´. Don´t talk to me about having my civil rights determined by a mob whose actions are motivated by unfounded fear and inflamed by bible thumping preachers who themselves should be the last to cast stones. I don´t want to hear another crappy thing about "activist judges" doing evil things when in fact, at least in terms of the gay marriage issues, it´s becoming increasing clear that more and more judges, both conservative and liberal in this country understand that excluding gays from civil marriage is just plane wrong. We cannot truly be a land of the free and then turn around and tell gay citizens - for no valid reason - they cannot participate fully in the social structure of the country. We cannot have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if we go about changing constitutions to enshrine the prejudices and whimsy-moods of the "people" and exclude otherwise full and faithful citizens from the benefits of community. We have enough examples of gross miscarriage of the principals of democracy in our own civil history before and since 1776. Let´s not add another for C´s sake!
Among all the rhetoric out there the last day or so, the following AP story quote struck my attention:
"(The ruling) is not the way a democracy is supposed to handle these sorts of heartfelt, divisive issues," said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, one of the groups helping to underwrite the gay marriage ban campaign. "I do think it will activate and energize Californians. I'm more confident than ever that we will be able to pass this amendment come November."
I´ve got news for Mr. Brown. He needs to get his head out of his butt and study up on just how a representative democracy is suppose to work and the role of the judiciary in keeping the balance of power. He needs to understand that what the Supreme Court of California just did is, in fact, an example of how a democracy should work. But I fear he might just be right about some of what he says....a certain proportion of voters will be easily inflamed by this decision and their fear and angst will be manipulated to the hilt by those who have an anti-gay agenda. Bigots are easily energized by fear and misinformation. The issue is certainly divisive but - don´t be fooled for a moment by Brown´s use of the world "heartfelt" - it´s just a cover term that translates to a stubborn mean-spirited a-hole. I imagine Hitler´s hatred of Jews was heartfelt. But does that suggest such hatred should be any more acceptable? Get off the crapper Mr. Brown and get a life.
By the way, if Brown and his organization want to do something to support and protect marriage, outlaw divorce and make having affairs or using prostitutes by married people a felony. Try that on for constitutional size!
One other point for Mr. Brown and those who, like him, believe the "will of the people" is the end all and be all of democracy. Read the Federalist Papers Mr. Brown. They were written over 250 years ago, after the Revolution but before all the details were worked out on how government should run the new country. Mostly penned by Madison and Hamilton, the Papers, a series of 85 essays, debated various structures of government. Reading them all gives a person considerable insight into how the US Constitution was devised. In Federalist Paper #63, there is a discussion of the role of the Senate in relation to control of government and the moods of the people: The writer states that a "well constructed Senate" is necessary…. "as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions" because "….there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn". Continuing on, the writer comments… "In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind".
If I have to much interpret this for readers in light of today´s political decision and the protection of minorities from the tyranny of the majority, then I give up…..To me, this long quote could substitute with little change in language (except maybe the term Judiciary substituting for the term Senate – which later was actually done) as a contemporary rational for just why the "will of the people" is not always a good way to determine matters…particularly of a civil rights nature. And remember, early on in this "free" country wasn´t it the will of the people that continued slavery, made any women little more than property but hung black people from trees for saying hello to a white woman?
Obviously, even hundreds of years ago, thinking minds realized that "people" can suffer errors and delusions and be negatively influenced by those who fan their passions and who mislead them in service to their own self-interest. That´s why we have a three part government with checks and balances. That´s why not all matters of State are decided by a simply majority vote.
But whatever happens in the short term ....the handwriting is on the wall. Legal gay marriage at the Federal level will come to this land and to the world just as surely as anti-black-white marriage laws got systematically struck down by "activist judges". And by the way, guess what, it was the California Supreme Court in 1948 that, two decades before the US Supreme Court did it, had the courage to strike-down California´s antimiscegenation laws.
Some say, "So goes California, so goes the country." We shall see...I hope in my lifetime.
Oh crap. Did I put the gloves back on?
So what, in particular, has ignited my fuse this time? Well, it´s the gay marriage thing again and the recent decision by the California Supreme Court (a bunch of conservative Republican appointees by the way) that holds that California´s Constitution is wrong to bar gay people from the civil institution of marriage. No, I´m not opposed to this decision. In fact, it´s been long in getting here and obviously very welcomed by all of the tax paying gay citizens of this supposedly "free" country who have the audacity to want their relationships legally recognized and want to partake of the civil benefits and responsibilities of marriage. What´s got me going today is the crappy yappy media (the supposed liberal media at that) once again grabbing on to this gay marriage issue and banging the drum in a fevered effort to convince everyone that it´s going to be of great importance in the upcoming election. Like they have done all through the campaign - attacking candidates on unimportant matters while glossing over the big stuff. By the way, if anyone still buys into the myth of the "liberal media", they are pretty darn stupid or too lazy to do a bit of research....Hey, just check out who "owns" the media and who really is calling the shots...it ain´t the liberal elite of Hollywood that´s for sure. Why else do you suppose the media has been so kind to our nearly brain dead and eternal frat-boy president? (Humm…maybe I should add I don´t mean to insult either the brain dead or frat boys by this comment – please forgive)
The media, now having the gratitude and endorsement of the fundamentalist right (who are about to wet their short with happiness), hopes to use the gay marriage debate as a wedge and distraction, counting that the public will once again be addled enough to buy into this crap and see gay marriage as an issue outweighing the reality of the mess that has been made by Bush & Company in the middle-east and the continuing decline of our home economy. What´s it going to take to get their attention - to convince these anti-gay marriage obsessed idiots that banning gays from getting married does absolutely nothing to solve economic or security problems in this country. Maybe gas at $6.00 a gallon and milk at $5.00 a quart? Will that do it? Are the far right and the Republicans who claim them as base going to once again get away with tricking voters into endorsing or rejecting candidates solely on the basis of where the candidate stands on the gay marriage issue? I´m almost afraid to consider that question for too long. I´ve just about lost faith in the "wisdom" of the electorate....if it every had any. After all, where´re just coming off the presidency of a man twice "elected" by "voters" to the highest office in the free world who can´t even speak a complete, grammatically correct sentence and probably has not had an original thought since devising a panty-raid plan when he was a college fraternity boy. By the way, I hear that plan failed too...I guess it foretold his future. We should have listened. He never did really grow up. I know, that´s hard to do when your brain has been picked in alcohol and "other substances". I´ve also just about bought into some of the conspiracy theorists who suggest our votes don´t count anyway after they are swallowed by the electronic throats of voting machines produced, shipped and software controlled by companies that have heavy vested interest in outcomes. OK, I´m drifting off topic. Sorry.
I´m also really gut-wrenchingly sick of hearing about the "will of the people". Any literate person who takes the time to read a bit of history will easily conclude that the will of the people can and often has quickly become "mob rule". Some of the most atrocious actions in human history have been perpetuated by the will of the majority. The will of the people is not the gold standard some would have you believe. It was never intended by the founding fathers that individual minority civil rights be determined by "the will of the people". Can you say "Bill of Rights"?
So don´t talk to me about having voters getting a chance to express their bigoted misinformed mush-minds and altering some state constitution as being an example of the "will of the people´. Don´t talk to me about having my civil rights determined by a mob whose actions are motivated by unfounded fear and inflamed by bible thumping preachers who themselves should be the last to cast stones. I don´t want to hear another crappy thing about "activist judges" doing evil things when in fact, at least in terms of the gay marriage issues, it´s becoming increasing clear that more and more judges, both conservative and liberal in this country understand that excluding gays from civil marriage is just plane wrong. We cannot truly be a land of the free and then turn around and tell gay citizens - for no valid reason - they cannot participate fully in the social structure of the country. We cannot have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if we go about changing constitutions to enshrine the prejudices and whimsy-moods of the "people" and exclude otherwise full and faithful citizens from the benefits of community. We have enough examples of gross miscarriage of the principals of democracy in our own civil history before and since 1776. Let´s not add another for C´s sake!
Among all the rhetoric out there the last day or so, the following AP story quote struck my attention:
"(The ruling) is not the way a democracy is supposed to handle these sorts of heartfelt, divisive issues," said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, one of the groups helping to underwrite the gay marriage ban campaign. "I do think it will activate and energize Californians. I'm more confident than ever that we will be able to pass this amendment come November."
I´ve got news for Mr. Brown. He needs to get his head out of his butt and study up on just how a representative democracy is suppose to work and the role of the judiciary in keeping the balance of power. He needs to understand that what the Supreme Court of California just did is, in fact, an example of how a democracy should work. But I fear he might just be right about some of what he says....a certain proportion of voters will be easily inflamed by this decision and their fear and angst will be manipulated to the hilt by those who have an anti-gay agenda. Bigots are easily energized by fear and misinformation. The issue is certainly divisive but - don´t be fooled for a moment by Brown´s use of the world "heartfelt" - it´s just a cover term that translates to a stubborn mean-spirited a-hole. I imagine Hitler´s hatred of Jews was heartfelt. But does that suggest such hatred should be any more acceptable? Get off the crapper Mr. Brown and get a life.
By the way, if Brown and his organization want to do something to support and protect marriage, outlaw divorce and make having affairs or using prostitutes by married people a felony. Try that on for constitutional size!
One other point for Mr. Brown and those who, like him, believe the "will of the people" is the end all and be all of democracy. Read the Federalist Papers Mr. Brown. They were written over 250 years ago, after the Revolution but before all the details were worked out on how government should run the new country. Mostly penned by Madison and Hamilton, the Papers, a series of 85 essays, debated various structures of government. Reading them all gives a person considerable insight into how the US Constitution was devised. In Federalist Paper #63, there is a discussion of the role of the Senate in relation to control of government and the moods of the people: The writer states that a "well constructed Senate" is necessary…. "as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions" because "….there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn". Continuing on, the writer comments… "In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind".
If I have to much interpret this for readers in light of today´s political decision and the protection of minorities from the tyranny of the majority, then I give up…..To me, this long quote could substitute with little change in language (except maybe the term Judiciary substituting for the term Senate – which later was actually done) as a contemporary rational for just why the "will of the people" is not always a good way to determine matters…particularly of a civil rights nature. And remember, early on in this "free" country wasn´t it the will of the people that continued slavery, made any women little more than property but hung black people from trees for saying hello to a white woman?
Obviously, even hundreds of years ago, thinking minds realized that "people" can suffer errors and delusions and be negatively influenced by those who fan their passions and who mislead them in service to their own self-interest. That´s why we have a three part government with checks and balances. That´s why not all matters of State are decided by a simply majority vote.
But whatever happens in the short term ....the handwriting is on the wall. Legal gay marriage at the Federal level will come to this land and to the world just as surely as anti-black-white marriage laws got systematically struck down by "activist judges". And by the way, guess what, it was the California Supreme Court in 1948 that, two decades before the US Supreme Court did it, had the courage to strike-down California´s antimiscegenation laws.
Some say, "So goes California, so goes the country." We shall see...I hope in my lifetime.
Oh crap. Did I put the gloves back on?