Solving the gay marriage mess
Massachusetts’ old-style (= corrupt) House Speaker, Thomas Finneran, no longer backs a compromise amendment to the state constitution that would permit civil unions but ban same-sex marriages. Instead, he wants two amendments. The first would say: “It being the public policy of this Commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts.” According to the report in the Boston Globe, the second amendment “would include language saying that the Legislature ‘shall establish civil unions,’ but would call for the Legislature to define at a later date exactly what rights and benefits those unions would include.”
Ah, excellent. Let’s limit rights first and then maybe get around to supporting some, maybe, oh look, the cat’s coughing, what were we talking about?
But those of us who support the right of loving adults to marry can learn from this strategy: We should break our push into two parts. First, we should make it legal for same-sex couples to marry, but only if they’re hot lesbians. That’s something this great nation has obviously shown it can get behind. And then we can expand the right to include all those whose love dares not speak “I do.”
Cross-posted at Loose Democracy
Categories: Uncategorized dw
http://grumet.net/weblog/archives/2004/03/04/000680.html
Weinberger: “We should break our push into two parts. First, we should make it legal for same-sex couples to marry, but only if they’re hot lesbians.”…
Did you just say “get behind” hot lesbians? The visual on that is hard to shake.
On a more serious note, the current controversy has forced my hand on this issue. I hadn’t thought it through before, but now I can’t deny that I have come down on the side of marriage for any two consenting adults regardless of gender. I say we strike back with an ad campaign like this: “A vote to ammend the constitution is a vote for bin Laden!” The beauty of it is that it doesn’t have to make sense! Just pair the two over and over again, like Bush did with Saddam and 9-11, and we’re all set.
For some ungodly reason, I read that as “like Bush did with Sweden and 9-11.”
The actual language of the proposed amendment does not say that the ‘legal incidents’ of marriage will be denied only to gay couples; it says they will be denied to ALL unmarried people – including heterosexual couples! This could be used as a basis for prohibiting unmarried people from adopting, from cohabiting, and it could even be used to make a crime of ALL sex outside of marriage!
Some of our elected officials say they want to protect the sanctity of marriage. Sanctity– the sacred– is not within the legitimate scope of the government. What part of “make no laws regarding an establishment of religion”; do they not understand? It is illegal for the government to regulate the sacred.
One person’s sanctity is another person’s blasphemy.
How long before what someone else thinks is sacred conflicts with your idea of the sacred? Should the government protect the sanctity of the cow, which the Hindus believe hold the spirits of their ancestors? Should the government close all the roads on Saturday to protect the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath?
The sanctity of marriage under God should be left up to individual houses of worships. The right of marriage under the state is none of the business of you or your church. That is a civil, secular concern between two people who love each other, and the state bound by social contract to protect them.
How dare anyone suggest that “The People” have a right to vote on the rights of another group of people? Majority rule isn’t American Democracy. Majority rule is Mob Rule.
The judiciary is supposed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. It is precisely the job of the court to protect minorities and unpopular groups of people from being persecuted.
This is the very core of our Democracy and what it means to be an American– Liberty and Justice FOR ALL—whether you condemn or condone them.
Civil marriage is a civil right, granting over 1,000 federal rights for couples to preserve and protect their families. It allows hospital visitation and protection of children. Over 40% of all adoptions in Massachusetts are by gay couples. These families have value. These families and their values deserve to be protected, too.
Civil Unions would only be recognized in this state, and not at a federal level, denying those couples who love each other equal protection under the law.
This issue has very little to do with gay people, sanctity, God or even marriage. This is about preserving the Constitution of The United States.
It truly bothers me that there are those out there who hate gay people more than they love the Constitution, who are more afraid of who gay people marry than of what a government unshackled from The Equal Protection Clause might do to them.
Who is more afraid of The Fab Five than they are of John Ashcroft?
Homosexuals are not a racial minority, but they still deserve equal protection under the law. You don’t need to be a race to be a minority, and you don’t need to be a minority to deserve equal rights and equal protection. Equal protection is for everyone, whether it is a choice or not, and separate is never equal.
In this state, Baptists are a minority. Yet, nobody has called for a referendum on the rights of Baptists to marry other Baptists. Don’t Baptists deserve equal rights and equal protection under the law even though they are not a racial minority and they have chosen their particular lifestyle? Do “The People” have the right to put the value of that lifestyle to a popular vote?
Why are so many African-Americans so willing to hang a “Straights Only” sign on the Justice of The Peace?
Whose sanctity should we vote on next? Can we vote on yours?
Sincerely,
Rev. Ian Brumberger
I would like to suggest new legislation for the purpose of protecting and preserving the sanctity of circumcision.
Traditionally, circumcision has been a sacred institution honoring the covenant between God and the Children of Abraham set forth in Genesis 17.
Only recently, gentiles began emulating the motions and mechanics of circumcision, but violating its sanctity by conducting it without religious ritual, on non-Jews, in secular, medical contexts.
The act of circumcision was defined thousands of years ago as a sacred rite performed upon a Jewish child, for the purpose of sanctifying a man before God. This is older even than the tradition of limiting “traditional Judeo-Christian Marriage” to one man and one woman.
To reduce circumcision to a mere clinical procedure, requiring only a scalpel and some Betadine, is a mockery of Judaism and of God Himself.
Furthermore, The Bible and millennia of tradition explicitly forbid duplicating the act of circumcision, without ritual, upon non-believers:
“Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more” (Deut. 10:16).
“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD And remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest My wrath go forth like fire And burn with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds” (Jer. 4:4).
And not just in The Bible, but in The New Testament as well:
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (Rom 2:28-29).
I remind you, this tradition is even older than the tradition of marriage between one man and one woman. It is not only older than marriage, but in Jewish law it is a prerequisite to marriage. Without the sacred ritual of circumcision to sanctify a man before God, marriage itself is not sacred.
And above all, we must preserve the sanctity of marriage.
Therefore, I ask that the state recognize this millennia old definition of circumcision. We must amend our constitution to officially define circumcision as a privilege reserved solely for Jews to sanctify themselves before God. We must forbid non-Jews from changing and corrupting the definition of circumcision, and by extension, the institution of marriage upon which our civilization depends.
We need to lobby our legislators to put this amendment before the citizens for a vote as quickly as possible.
Sincerely,
Rev. Ian Brumberger
http://www.imwithstupid.org
Homosexuality and Gay Marriages
We struck this topic in another post and I’m kinda interested to see what you all think.
The Republican’s are taking the Religious side, and its starting to seem like they are trying to shove there views on gay marriage down our throats. Shou…
First of all, I would like to say, that as a gay man I find what has been written her to be completely and utterly hilarious—-and thought provoking.
Thanks, good ideas.
I would defend to the death someone’s right to say things I disagree with, to preserve the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.
And I may disagree with them, but I would also defend to the death someone’s right to be a Baptist and to be married as a Baptist, as an Atheist— or even a Satanist— to preserve the First and Fourteenth Amendments protections of religious freedom and equal protection.
Regardless of my feelings about homosexuals, I would defend to the death their right to equal protection and their right to marry who they choose, as I would for anyone.
The issue isn’t gay rights or the sanctity of marriage. The issue is this: would you defend the rights of someone you disagree with to preserve your own freedom, your own rights, and The Constitution of the United States?
What is more important: your particular religious beliefs, or the document that protects your right to have them?
I want to live my life as a free man, in a free country, that protects the rights of all people—including people I disagree with or even despise.
How can anyone hate another person more than they love their country or their Constitution?
The sanctity of marriage under God should be left up to individual houses of worships. The right of marriage under the state is none of the business of you or your church. That is a civil, secular concern between two people who love each other, and the state bound by social contract to protect them.
Sanctity– the sacred– is not within the legitimate scope of the government. The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” It is illegal for the government to regulate the sacred, and it is frightening to think it can be subject to popular vote.
How dare anyone suggest that “The People” have a right to vote to infringe the liberty of another group of people? Majority rule isn’t American Democracy. We are a Democratic Republic. Majority rule is Mob Rule.
Equal protection is for everyone, whether they have been born a different color, have been born gay, or have made a different choice than we would have liked. And separate is never equal.
In this state, Baptists are a minority. Yet, nobody has called for a referendum on the rights of Baptists to marry other Baptists. Don’t Baptists deserve equal rights and equal protection under the law, even though they are not a racial minority and they have chosen their particular lifestyle? Do “The People” have the right to put the value of that lifestyle to a popular vote?
This is the very core of our Democracy and what it means to be an American– Liberty and Justice FOR ALL—whether you condemn or condone them.
Don’t destroy the Constitution in a short-sighted attempt to lash out in the dark against those you fear.
Love thy Constitution as thyself.
Rev. Ian Brumberger
The National Association for Stupid Acceptance (The NASA)
http://www.imwithstupid.org
Organizations such as The American Family Association do not seek to “protect marriage.” They seek to deny gay relationships “any legal recognition” of any kind.
http://www.unitedanglicanchurch.org/uac_information.htm
http://www.cwfa.org/ma-update.asp
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/130/story_13037_1.html
http://www.cwfa.org/papersarchive.asp
http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/masjc-09163.pdf
http://www.afa.net/Category.asp?y=2004&m=4&id=5
http://www.afa.net/family/Default.asp?y=2004&m=4&id=5
They argue from one side of their face that marriage is unnecessary for gay couples because most (if not all) rights granted by marriage are available by other means– such as a medical proxy.
From the other side of their face, they seek to reserve “all rights traditionally belonging to marriage” solely for heterosexual couples.
http://www.ccv.org/Homosexuality-Where_CCV_Stands.htm
http://www.state.tn.us/tccy/tnchild/36/36-3-113.htm
They also say that if civil unions are allowed, “don’t panic,” because they will try to get rid of them later.
And if there were any doubt of their intentions, they are even lobbying for legislation that would forbid gay couples from having hospital visitation– even with a medical proxy.
They’ve even sued to force municipalities and companies do stop voluntarily providing same sex partner coverage for their employees
Do you want an idea of their ultimate, Final Solution, to “The Gay Problem?”
Michigan just passed The Conscientious Objector Policy Act (COPA) which would allow physicians, pharmacists, and health care insurers to refuse medical treatment to any individual they choose on “ethical, moral, or religious grounds.”
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/04/042904michFolo.htm
http://www.tgcrossroads.org/news/?aid=870
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/8709907.htm
http://www.washblade.com/2004/5-7/news/healthnews/HIBS.cfm
http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=2003-HB-5006
While the law forbids “conscientious objections” due to race and religion, they rejected an amendment to the bill that would have included sexual orientation on the list of those who could not be discriminated against.
They also rejected an amendment that would have required an objector to provide a referral to another service provider.
And the bill does make an exception for “emergency treatment,” but does not specify what constitutes an emergency– for example, is bleeding to death an emergency, or is something like a broken arm (not life threatening, but painful) an emergency?
There are COPA laws in the works in several other states right now. I honestly believe that if we do not do something soon, this will be the first true step in the next Holocaust.
These laws like COPA are what people like Grand Rabbi Ira Korff are supporting at the same time that they say homosexuals should be treated “with love, intelligence and compassion,” to quote Rebbe Y.A. Korff.
This is the same hypocritical scumbag who distributed “Last Temptation of Christ for Viacom,” and now says “what’s coming out of Hollywood” is the real problem with society. He owns a newspaper, and claims that “the values and institutions which have been around for centuries have been undermined by concepts like free love and free speech.”
Ira Korff also says, “”Freedom of speech does not give people the right to speak derogatorily about others,” yet he says homosexuals are destroying society and likens them marrying each other to marrying, “man’s best friend, the dog.”
http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/other/5_May/doma2.htm
Rebbe Korff says that, “if you act civil, you will breed civility in others. I hardly see him as being in any way “civil.”
http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/2000/8_Aug/rebbe.htm
http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/other/5_May/doma2.htm
These people do not want to “protect” squat. They come only to destroy. And the final smoking gun pointing to a conspiracy to commit genocide is the so-called “Conscientious Objector Policy Act.”
It is disgusting that a fellow Jew like Ira Korff, who was appointed as a chaplain to the City of Boston, is so willing to put on the jackboots and become a willing executioner himself.
When did “Never Again” suddenly become, “take THEM first?”
They claim that they are trying to protect and preserve the sanctity of marriage and the family.
They are lying.
One of the members of The MFI / AFM is The Grand Rabbi Ira Korff, Chaplain for the City of Boston.
The title of ”Grand Rabbi” is neither elected nor appointed– it is inherited. The Jewish community didn’t choose Ira Korff.
He is lying.
For almost two years, I worked for Ira Korff at The Jewish Advocate newspaper in Boston.
Last year, within the space of about four months, my mother had congestive heart failure, my grandmother died, and I was diagnosed with cancer.
I spoke to Ira Korff and told him I was having another operation in a week, and my mother was having an operation the week after that.
I asked Ira Korff if I could take an unpaid medical leave for a month to protect and preserve my family and my health.
Grand Rabbi Ira Korff, Chaplain of the City of Boston, champion for the preservation and protection of the family, said “No.”
He told me that in this economy he could replace me quickly for less money.
In their crusade against gay people, Ira Korff and The Massachusetts Family Institute have joined forces with the leadership of The Islamic Society of North America, Islamic Society of Boston, Islamic Society of New England– supporters of Hamas and of Al Queda. Terrorists.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1203/ marriage_terrorists.php3
The image of same-sex couples at the altar together is more horrific to Ira Korff than people flinging themselves from the windows of the burning World Trade Center.
Ira Korff is more afraid of seeing gay people happily married than he is of seeing his own brethren lying mangled and bloody in the streets of Israel.
Ira Korff is also the Honorary Consulate to Austria. The post had been discarded in disgust following the election of a Nazi-sympathizer as Chancellor of Austria. Ira Korff jumped at the chance to take the unwanted “honorary” position on the bones of our martyred fathers.
Grand Rabbi Ira Korff rubs shoulders with terrorists and Nazis.
These so-called protectors of the family and preservers of marriage are liars and frauds and hypocrites.
They are people like Ira Korff, whose newspaper I know (and can prove) has been lying for years about the circulation figures upon which it bases its advertising rates.
They are a motley assemblage of Judases, Uncle Toms and Judenrats.
Liars. Frauds. Hypocrites.
What Ira Korff and his fellow travelers are doing now has all been done before, and it started with laws about who was allowed to marry whom.
Why would someone want to exchange their yellow star for a swastika?We need everyone to speak up and say, with one voice, “Never Again!”
—
Rev. Ian Brumberger
Brockton, MA
The National Association for Stupid Acceptance
http://www.imwithstupid.org
Because Stupidity Does Not Excuse Ignorance
Ok, the new gay parents thing to support the children if divorced…hmm…how do you decide that? If neither of them had the child (if it’s two hair backs), then you have to decide who played the girl role. I bet they turn the tables in court fighting over who drove the most because I guess whoever bent over the most gets the most child support. Sheez, grow up people.
My main problem with legalizing gay marriage is that it seems like it would potentially increase vs. decrease the statistical probability that two men who are pedophiles could be legally empowered to adopt little boys as their children. That right there is enough for me to say absolutely no to gay marriage altogether, because I simply don’t believe that such instances could be totally prevented, and I would never support such a law unless there was an unbreakable gurantee that such a horror would not become a reality i.e. a clause that forbids adoption by all gay couples. It’s too bad but one bad apple can and does very often spoil the bunch. Deal with it.
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A funny copy of the million dollar website has emerged. The Million Dollar Bush site allows you to purchase advertising pixels to cover a picture of Geroge W Bush, Cover the lies & Advertise .
As a gay rights activist and small business owner I advertised on their website. I suggest you inquire with them. I think it is funny and sends a message to Bush and also gives $100,000 to charity.
http://www.milliondollarbush.com
This gay marriage mess will never be resolved and it will be something Americans will have to fight for and defend for the rest of our time here on our polluted planet. I can only hope my fellow supporters can keep the faith and fight for whats right. It is a shame how it has become such a joke to people these days. It can’t be “fixed” so don’t take it serisouly? Love is love no matter who you are.
18:22
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
18:23
Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
18:24
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
18:25
And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
18:26
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
18:27
(For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
18:28
That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
18:29
For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
18:30
Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.
Marriage in church and state: within a religious practice, marriage is a ritual which brings about a definitive change in the condition of the soul. When marriage is a sacrament, it participates in a transcendental continuum which is infinite and eternal. Thus religious marriages participate in mythic powers which are not answerable to science, humanistic reason, civil law, tradition, or to mundane experience. As Marianne Moore has written:
I’m sure of this:
Nothing mundane is divine;
Nothing divine is mundane.
A ritualistic wedding, under the care of God, can overlap and supplement a civil wedding within a secular state. However, a civil wedding does not participate in an infinite and eternal transcendental continuum. A religious marriage is answerable to an infinite and eternal God, yet a religious marriage is also answerable to secular law, which is finite and temporal. Hence a secular state need not enforce religious laws revealed from the transcendental God. Polygamy obeys a transcendental revelation which is taken as divine law, rather than civil law. Federal constitutional grounds for the unlawfulness of polygamy are not obvious, and indeed, local civil laws are often allowed to go unenforced. Religious and civil marriages can be allowed to overlap, but in only one direction, with the religious overlapping the secular, while the secular does not include the religious. That is, while the religious acknowledges the civil, the civil need not submit to the religious. In the United States, a religious marriage must render unto Caesar (Julius Caesar was legendary as every woman’s husband and every man’s wife, but under neither divine or mundane law, without benefit of marriage). In religious logic, ideas and images overlap each other: God is Love, God is Light, God is Truth, Beauty and Goodness. In religious terms, both the soul of a male and the soul of a female can marry God, or one of the Persons of God, with the soul as a Bride of the Christ. A wedding and marriage are meanings, with the meaning of a religious wedding quite different from the meaning of a civil wedding. Religious concepts easily transcend and outwit the technical logic of civil marriage, the concepts overflowing with meanings, while the concepts of civil marriage contract into intelligible rules. A civil marriage, which has little metaphorical value, is less a mystical union than a contractual obligation (different yet still religious relations between marriage and contract appear in Islam, where marriage is a contractual union). Civil law, in contrast with religious law, is not free to overlap concepts: a civic good may be in conflict with a civic beauty, and civil justice, unlike divine justice, may not claim to represent absolute justice. In One Nation Under God, the Nation is specifiable, the God is not. A state-wedding is a construction which is specifiable throughout, while in contrast a ritual wedding is an unspecifiable mystery. A civil wedding takes the mystery out of marriage, while religious marriage in the Judeo-Christian traditions is answerable to God and to God’s laws, which are not easily interpreted uniformly, and which are difficult to appeal from, since God is Justice. Civil law, thinking technically, must differentiate concepts, both describing and prescribing minute distinctions a judge may rule on. Such a ruling is always itself yet to be ruled on if problems like injustice arise. Religious marriage, historically, has never been fair to women, while civil marriage has sometimes been unfair, as when marriage to a foreign national could cost a woman her citizenship.
In the United States, under the Constitution as it was first constructed, and now as it survives continuous reconstructions, the Constitution does not protect religious marriage; and is forbidden to do so under the separation of a secular government from religious values, powers and rituals. Legal marriage is left to the states, which govern only secular civil actions. Thus a religious marriage has no necessary implications for civil marriage, and civil marriage has no necessary implications for religious marriage. The Constitution of the United States, which doesn’t mention marriage, cannot require a marriage which participates in religious values, functions, structures and meanings. Nor can the state forbid a specific marriage because a religion forbids such a marriage. Mundane civil marriage, with laws which are themselves on trial for their constitutionality, is always to be separated from a divine marriage which is an act of faith in transcendental mysteries. A civil marriage is not mysterious; its terms should be beyond the reach of transcendental religions. Even the relation of god-child to god-parent is a mysterious relation such that a god-child in Catholicism has not been allowed to marry a god-parent, although a god-parent might marry a god-child outside the Church. In an analogy, a civil adoption does not entail a baptism or a christening, it is a matter of civil law which a judge interprets case-by-case, and is open to in effect a retrial.
The state has no grounds to admit impediments to the marriage of true minds, as long as a few conditions of age and of health are met. Yet some marriages need not submit either to state or church, as with the marriage between Quequeeg and Ishmael in Moby Dick: “He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.” Fortunately such an inspirited marriage does not need the blessing of a state or the protection of a church, although both the civil state and religions should have an interest in settled emotional and sexual relations among its citizens.
By 2006, religions have relativized marriage, so that a couple can be married in two contrary religions with their different modes of thought. In a religious wedding, a bride and groom must negate some parts of themselves in order to channel God’s love through them, while a civil marriage commits the mind of the citizen more than the soul of a child of God. The methods of thought in religious marriage, that wedding of souls, differ from the methods of thought in a secular wedding, that bond between of citizens. Because “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” under the separation of religious law from secular law, governments in the United States are forbidden to make laws respecting an establishment of religious marriage.
Have any of you seen these ads by “wearethinking” that speak out against gay civil rights?
Here’s a couple links from YouTube to check them out yourselves.
Has anyone seen these ads by “WeAreThinking” that speak out against gay civil rights? Very interesting stuff. Here are some links to check them out for yourself on YouTube.
I was wondering, why not just “invent” your own type of marriage. I know that it might then sound as if it wouldn’t be equal, but marriage was originally a religious christian idea. Why not have a type of ceremony, or “marriage” that is custom and unique and made by and for gay people? I know that there there is a “civil union” idea, but why not really just make your own group idea (instead of just using a religious ceremony and set of ideas). I think many people have a problem with gay marriage because they feel it is not coinciding with the bible, well then make your own personally desired union.
HEAR THIS: gay marriage is here to stay, “as goes Massachusetts, so goes the nation,†and soon gay marriage will be coming to a state near you!
In the three years since the implementation of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, opponents of equality for same-sex couples have ranted and raved that same-sex marriage weakens the foundation of our society and destroys traditional marriage.
Yet, in those three years, “not one†iota of proof – real factual evidence that could be presented in a court of law – has ever been offered to show that these predictions have come true. Massachusetts continues to rank “FIRST†amongst all states for the greatest longevity of marriage and “LOWEST†divorce rates in the nation, you want proof? “look that upâ€
GOD IS ABOUT LOVE – NOT HATE!!