When 'Wrong' Doesn't Mean 'I Condemn Thee'

Thanks Joe... I haven't even been able to read the 70+ comments since I returned this weekend... I hope to jump back in soon.

Joe said:

I explained that being straight has little to do with my supporting the Virginia Marriage Amendment, and that of the more important reasons for supporting it...

I think, given the length of this discussion to date, a quick re-hashing of those reasons would be helpful for all participants.

[You condemned] the fact I am supposedly supporting the Amendment because of my aversion to homosexuality, and despite my never saying so you accuse me of "concern" about what people do in their bedrooms and say I want to "outlaw" it.

Joe, please re-read my post (the one you quoted).

I condemned nothing. I asked you to tie your previous comments to your support for the amendment. If your comments have nothing to do with your support, then say so and let's get off this tangent and discuss/debate the "more important reasons" behind your support.

Also, I was suggesting that you are supporting legislation to "outlaw" same-sex marriage, not homosexuality or homosexual relations occurring in private (that'd be a pretty fruitless endeavor).

I, too, can (and should) demand intellectual honesty from my interlocutors. And for the record, I never accused you of homophobia, hate-mongering, or unrestrained aversion. Labels like that only serve to over-simplify what is obviously a complex issue. Let's talk about the actual issues and logic behind our respective beliefs rather than resorting to name-calling and semantics.

wow, your argument deteriorated quickly. No one is accusing you of organizing a lynch mob, only that your FEELING of disgust isn't grounds for changing the constitution. You can think it's wrong all you want. Again, no one is asking you to like it. the crap hits the fan when people say that because they don't like something, there needs to be a constitutional ban on it.

I think you know that that's the argument. I guess you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole, so I'll throw you a rope, it's called pluralism.

but that's impossible. some people claim to have different ideas than you, so you accuse them of dishonesty. I've not been dishonest, we just think differently. that's ok, that's why we can't go banning stuff in the constitution.

now you can go to m-w.com and look up "homophobia" yourself if you like, (I'm tired of cutting and pasting it) I don't think it's the same definition as "straight."

I am not gay because I am not attracted to men. to me, females are sexy, guys aren't. that's the end of it. Maybe you can't comprehend that someone could be straight without being "grossed out" by gays, you seem pretty convinced that your experience of heterosexuality must apply to every other heterosexual's experience, so go ahead and convince yourself that I'm being dishonest if it makes you feel better, but I'm not.

in your last post in the other thread, you wrote,

"I see a number of problems posed by gay marriage - or I wouldn't be in favor of the amendment. If I come to believe those problems are not real, I'll change my mind on this issue - and it would have nothing to do with warming up to a night in the pup tent."

a number of problems, eh? Lots of people have suggested it, but no one has been able to make this argument.

two weeks ago I was having this discussion with Sophrozyn, who said gays harmed society, referencing "peer-reviewed studies" which he promised to post. After a week, he opened a new thread where he posted 4 Heritage Foundation articles that dealt with divorce rates and marriage as a benefit to women (they need protection)

http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/06/family_foundation_marriage_cam.php#comment-1731

Than Charles, apparently a newspaper columnist, joined in, claiming again that gays harm society. Yet despite being paid for putting ideas into words, he was unable to make the case beyond saying that gay children would make slumber parties impossible to chaperon.
He spelt a lot of time picking other people's arguments apart line by line, but when someone pointed out problems with his reasoning, they were guilty of failing to see the brilliance of his arguments "big picture"
and now you're saying, basically, that you just know that gays are harming society and that their lifestyle is "wrong," and "gross" but you need more time to put together your uber-post to prove it. Joe, you don't need to prove it, you BELIEVE it. At this point it's quite clear that any arguments you (and your minions) make are made for the sake of rationalizing your BELIEF that gay is wrong. You start with that assumption, and try and try to prove it, but you will never change your mind based on evidence. If a study showed that gays have no negative impact on society, you wouldn't change your belief, you'd decide that the study was somehow flawed.
Maybe someday you will have a change of HEART, but that isn't necessary. You are free to be grossed out, that's just a pathetic reason to amend the constitution.

Wow, that was fast.

Anyone who wants to compare what Gnossis wrote above, with what he said earlier, as well as all the things I've actually been accused of, please go here.

http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/06/family_foundation_marriage_cam.php

Scroll to the bottom of the page and read upward for as long as you can bear it.

Pretty crazy, huh? That's what we deal with here on a daily basis.

But, Gnossis, I do welcome the change of heart. Please note: I didn't get involved till way late in the discussion, to address what I saw as careless use of the homophobia charge. I have barely even weighed in about the Amendment yet.

Stay Puft! My word! I hadn't grouped you with the ones who twist and obfuscate, but heck, join right in.

I guess that's why I said my reasons for being straight have little to do with my opinion on the Amendment, huh? And I guess that's why I didn't say I know gays are harming society, huh? And how I will never change my mind based on evidence -- Oh, except I said precisely that's what I WOULD do.

I think all the reader has to do is compare what you just wrote immediately above, to my actual words in this post. I didn't accuse those rascals of dishonesty because they disagreed with me; I called them dishonest because they weren't truthful about specific things other people said.

Thank you guys, you're making me look like a friggin' Freud.

I think one problem, Joe, is that you have never articulated why you support the anti-gay Marriage Amendment. Sophrosyne put forward some reasons, which I countered and which have yet to be responded to. To sum up some of those arguments, I pointed out how Sophrosyne's theories of the immutable characteristics of marriage under Virginia law were in fact not so immutable after all. Charles then chimed in with his theories of "reproductive units" and the dangers of slumber parties and all-gay cub scout troupes. You then entered the discussion and said "I think homosexual behavior is wrong and people shouldn't do it." You didn't say "Homosexuality is wrong FOR ME." You said, "homosexual behavior is wrong and people shouldn't do it."

So who is being dishonest here, Joe?

Whether you believe homosexuality is wrong for you or for others, you still haven't articulated a reason for why we need a constitutional amendment that will enshrine in the constitution discrimination against one vulnerable segment of the population. The only reason you have given thus far has been your own personal feelings about homosexuality, which now seem more unclear than ever, since you seem to have backtracked somewhat from your original statement.

Finally, you revert to the only argument someone who apparently has no argument has left: You impugn our METHOD of argument and accuse us of being dishonest debaters.

If you truly want to have an honest debate on this issue (and in truth, I'm not sure that is really what you want because I think this whole issue of gay marriage is a fear-mongering tactic designed to get the Republican base out to the polls in November) then lets have one. Lay out the reasons you think it is so important to amend the Constitution and most ironically of all alter Virginia's BILL OF RIGHTS and potentially will take away rights from unmarried heterosexual couples as well and refute the arguments I have already made on Sophrosyne's weak claims. If you really want to have "honest debate," step up.

I thought we were trying to have an honest dialogue and not just score spin/distortion points? I have no idea why StayPuft would say anything as patently false as the following:

"two weeks ago I was having this discussion with Sophrozyn, who said gays harmed society, referencing "peer-reviewed studies" which he promised to post. After a week, he opened a new thread where he posted 4 Heritage Foundation articles that dealt with divorce rates and marriage as a benefit to women (they need protection)"

A) I NEVER said “gays harmed society”…. Show me where I did if you claim otherwise (as you clearly do). I did allude to, and ultimately begin to argue, that the redefinition of marriage (stripping away the core defining characteristic of marriage, the union of the two complementary parts of humanity, man and woman…) was not a good thing. This is vastly different to your above claim. I believe radically changing what marriage IS harms society.

B) I have not yet fully responded as promised to your inquiry (I can understand how you would think that I did given the fact that I began to comment on this issue under a post… but that post was obviously intended to discuss the developing campaign for the amendment… we got caught up in a spontaneous sub-conversation and thus I jumped right in.) Please don’t mistake my comments under some post as the totality of why I believe children do best when not willfully denied a mother or a father. Patience, patience… we’ll have plenty on that as this campaign unfolds.

C) I certainly posted more than “4 Heritage Foundation Articles that dealt with divorce rates and marriage as a benefit to women”… how you can even say that either calls into question your honesty or your ability to count/read. Here is what I posted in relation to this… please tell me how the below sampling of what I’ll be delving into in the near future is only “4 Heritage Foundation article”:

Here are some of the MANY I quickly pulled from some sources (and I can’t pull/link to most of them without Lexus-Nexis access which I don’t have here in my office but can get to later- that will be coming soon):

Robert Rector, Kirk Johnson , America Peterson, The Positive Effects of Marriage: A Book of Charts, The Heritage Foundation, April 2002: 36. (Taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health Wave II, 1996.) ww.heritage.org/Research/Features/Marriage/index.cfm

Amato, Paul & Allan Booth, A Generation at Risk: Growing Up In an Era of Family Upheaval. ( Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997).

Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek, and Carol Emig, 2002. "Marriage from a Child's Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can be Done about It?" Research Brief, June 2002. Washington, DC: Child Trends. p. 6.

Patrick F. Fagan, How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chances for Future Prosperity, Backgrounder #1283, J une 11, 1999. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/BG1283ES.cfm

Patrick F. Fagan, Robert E. Rector, and Lauren R. Noyes, Why Congress Should Ignore Radical Feminist Opposition to Marriage, The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #1662, June 16, 2003
http://www.heritage.org/research/family/bg1662es.cfm

Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better off Financially, New York : Doubleday, October 2000.

Jill Kirby, Broken Hearts: Family Decline and the Consequences for Society, Center for Policy Studies, 57 Tufton Street , London SWIP 3 QL.

James Q. Wilson, The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Weakened Families, New York : Harper Collins, 2002
Steven Nock. “Marriage as a Public Issue”
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/future_of_children/toc/foc15.2.html

Robert E. Rector, Patrick F. Fagan, and Kirk A. Johnson. “Marriage: Still the Safest Place For Women and Children”
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/bg1732.cfm

Patrick F. Fagan and Robert Rector, The Effects of Divorce on America, The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #1373, June 5, 2000. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/BG1373.cfm

And then I went on to actually discuss the merits of the two studies mentioned in support of the radical redefinition of marriage (principally with the neutral observations of Dr. Nock regarding the methodology and value of existing studies comparing the parenting of same-sex partners and a mother and a father). Does the above look like FOUR Heritage foundation articles focused solely on divorce rates and protecting women? Of course not…

Anyways… there is so much more I want to say but for now I felt I had to quickly jump in and set the record straight. Unfortunately work and travel have deprived me of the time necessary to fully partake in the unfolding dialogue (still have to read the 70+ comments!) but I look forward to jumping back in as soon as things cool down in my office. Let’s keep it civil and HONEST.

Bud, you say,
"my reasons for being straight have little to do with my opinion on the Amendment"

ok. I say, I don't believe you (note: that's not to say I think you're being dishonest). It would be fabulous if you could demonstrate that your "opinion on the amendment" is more than a rationalization for your gut reaction to the idea of homosexuality.

Sophrosyn:

when I said you had argued that, "gays harm society," I was paraphrasing (hence the lack of quotation marks in my original post. A more accurate paraphrasing or your argument might have been that you said gay marriage harms society. you have this argument here:

http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/06/marriage_200.php#comment-1668

where you stated,

"Because we have REAL EXAMPLES of what happens when same-sex "marriage" is instituted. I can tell you don't like the example but in Scandinavia the results are pretty clear. Many more children are born outside of wedlock than ever before as a direct result of the radical redefinition of what constitutes marriage and the corresponding change in perception. Also we can look to Massachusetts and see religious organizations (in this case Catholic Charities) are being run out of the adoption business because they won’t abandon their religious views and consequently their religious liberty."

The Scandinavia thing was in reference to an article in the weekly standard which, I felt, failed to demonstrate a causal relation between gay marriage and children out of wedlock. it only showed that the two things had occurred in the past 10 years in Scandinavia. We've already been over that, though

re: "4 Heritage Articles,"

I guess I was going from memory. you are right, though; I cannot count. Never have been good at it. well, technically, there are 4 heritage articles there.

nevertheless, the fact remains that the studies you posted focused on the issue of divorce, and the benefits to children of living in a stable environment. They show that children do better when they're parents aren't divorced. And as I stated before, the comparison between children who have divorced parents and children raised by gay parents is questionable; i.e. you cannot reasonably say that because children of divorce tend to have problems x,y and z, children raised by gay parents will also have problems x,y, and z.

as to, "Let’s keep it civil and HONEST." You, like Joe, are quick to assume that there is some sort of dishonesty taking place. I apologize for not accurately recollecting the number of articles you posted. It was not my intent to be dishonest, and I feel that my comments still reflected accurately the content of those articles.

Lots of words, people. I really just have one question for Joe, and that is: Do you not see the difference between "wrong" and "wrong for me?"

You are conflating the two throughout, and it's either because you don't notice, or because you deliberately wish to conflate them. If it is the latter, it is you who is being dishonest. If it is the former, well, how to say this nicely? There are other people in the world.

Sorry - I should also have said that I replied to you at our site, in case you haven't had time. In short, I don't think that "wrong for me" makes a person a homophobe. I doubt that anyone else does either.

Well this is all obviously pointless. What was a civil conversation (3-4 days ago) has clearly devolved into petty name-calling and unhelpful cornered-animal-ish retorts to each and the other's posts.

I doubt, at this point, that any of us will really be able to convince our opponents to change their views on the matter. If y'all want to scrap and sling mud, go ahead. I'll be waiting above the fray if/when an attempt at civil discourse is made.

I support the Marriage Amendment because I don't think sexist bias is a good enough reason to deprive a child of both a Mother and Father. I support diversity, and integration. Separate is never equal -- you'd think people had learned this lesson by now.

Joe,

You weren't listening to Ann Hull tonight. See my post

Sophie, and techies can help out here, why do you use the scary (or not so scary depending on your perspective) term "radical redefinition" when marriage equality is actually an extension of civil marriage law?

The above parenthetical is important. If state imposition of a one-man-one-woman gender quota is the defining characteristic, then I guess same-sex marriage is a redefinition. If that's the case, a marriage equality ban may protect that "idea" of "opposite-gendered” marriage, but will do nothing to protect actual marriages, reduce divorce and spousal abuse, solve the deadbeat dad problem, or cure all the other ills suffered by modern American marriage.

If the defining characteristics are “covenant”, commitment, fidelity, love, and the intention to be soul mates, then marriage equality is an extension of those qualities to same-sex couples.

The second set of characteristics is much more powerful than the first as this set puts the brain out front. The first puts the gonads out front. I don’t know about you but I’d rather have my brain take the lead.

My goodness gracious, I leave for five short hours and look at this fine mess!

Let's start with David, the new guy, whose sneakers are still fairly clean and who might still be able to escape unsullied: Yes, I have conflated the two, "wrong" and "wrong for me." I think the only context I've used "wrong" in is the context of my PERSONAL opinion or feelings. I've bent over backwards so often to explain that being straight REALLY isn't my reason for supporting the Amendment, that looking out through my own windshield homosexuality is wrong but I honestly don't lay awake fretting about what other people do in the sex department. Someone asks me about the reason I think what I think, and I try to give the unvarnished truth to the extent I can.

As far as I can tell, in all these miles of text, I'm the only one who has gone on record about their own rationale for their personal sexual preference, when I easily could have said, go to hell it's none of your business why I'm straight. Someone asked, I tried to explain, because this accusation of homophobia or bigotry seems misplaced.

I think homosexuality is wrong, but David, if you're gay, that doesn't make a rats ass worth of difference in my appraisal of you as a human being. If you're gay yet decent and thoughtful, and the other guy is straight but a total self-absorbed blowhard, I'd likely sit next to you at the picnic because I consider self-absorption a social dealbreaker, while homosexuality is not.

Ok, as to everyone else's concern: The street is indeed getting restless. They want me to take a stand on my reasons for supporting the Amendment. I won't fall back on my very early notice that this topic was going to take some time for me to explain my position on, because that notice was buried in a comment thread the length of Route 66 and you can't be expected to remember it.

I can dash off comments on why I'm not gay and why some of my compatriots here have been disingenuous because it takes no research and I can do it off the top of my head. I have another window open with the reams of argument and sources I'm compiling to lay out the argument about the Amendment, but it's a much tougher job, and not an off the top of the head job.

Because some of our commenters here will hold your feet to the fire and build a five-paragraph indictment against you if you forget the fourth item in a three-item list or employ the wrong preposition, I want to spell everything out as clearly as possible the first time so I don't get twenty paragraphs of misplaced whoop-ass opened on me which all has to be corrected before moving on.

In deference to Gnossis, I hereby stipulate I will retract the accusation of dishonesty of you all will finally retract the accusations of homophobia, thinking of homosexuals as less than human, or wanting to outlaw what anyone does in their bedroom. It's very irritating to be accused of something one is not guilty of.

Irritate me enough, and I'll get all medieval - twenty shots of Cuervo/ Stay Puft at 3:30 am - on your collective asses. THEN you'll know what I'm talkin' about.

Here's the preview of my argument against gay marriage. Bear in mind, I'm getting my ducks in a row still because I have a LOT of other time commitments.

There is no blanket resolution to this question, because the decision of whether the government should recognize same-sex marriages depends first on one's assumptions.

The data that turned my head was the research from the 10 or so years of legalized same sex marriage in Scandinavia. (Hold your fire, boys, keep those paragraphs bottled up inside, because I'm still evaluating the source material). It said, in part, that more kids ended up living with single parents. That would be one of the examples of harm, Stay Puft, that would color my decision making process.

Also, I've run across statistical stuff about an increased divorce rate and - as demonstrated in the Harvard article Stay Puft submitted on June 17 - huge complications in the legal system going forward.

So if your assumption is purely, what's best for the children, the research on this angle really needs to be plumbed.

Another assumption is religious. Maybe this should have been listed first...If your deeply-held religious beliefs say homosexuality is a really bad sin then you get a free pass from this entire debate. You go to the polls in November and vote for the Amendment because government recognition of gay marriage will certainly enhance the social acceptance of homosexuality, or at very least it will represent another step in the "mainstreaming" of homosexuality. Last time this happened: Fire rained from heaven; The whole place burned; People. Turned. Into. Salt.

That was Old Testament, incidentally, but it really left a mark.

That example is not my contention, but I'll admit the New Testament argument comes into play a little. I DON'T think God hates fags - in fact I think God has ordered rezoning a partition of the 10th Circle of Hell just for the God Hats Fags people. I think homosexuality was definitely incuded in some lists of sins, of which I am guilty of others in the list, so there's that: It's still a sin. To put that in perspective, as I said earlier, if the Sin Police are kicking butt and taking names at the Last Judgment I'll be in the holding pen with all the rest of y'all.

My personal faults are as much a sign of the coming of the last days as gay marriage is, so I can't exactly base my opposition to the latter solely on the religious argument.

The next assumption-group is what I call the "my wife" group, because it consists exclusively of opinions expressed by my wife, who is the paradigm of apolitical normalcy.

She says: "Allowing gay marriage could help some gay people and their children, and would not affect me at all. Also, why do we need to put a ban on something in our constitution?"

This one is the sticky wicket. If gay marriage has no ill effects, it's crazy to pass a constitutional amendment against it. That would be a great big net minus.

The final argument so far, in my research, is the argument Charles proposed, that government recognition of marriage reflects the outright benefit to society of encouraging marriage between heterosexual partners. They have the potential to reproduce, and also stay together to raise the children. The former is for the continuation and future support of the society; the latter (which brings in second marriages and adopting couples) is for the best proven way to raise kids.

As Charles said, the government provides incentives "coarsely," so couples on birth control and those past typical reproductive age still get the government benefits, because there is still the possibility of reproduction. The rule is: One man, one woman. It's easy to designate, and it has a slight bit of historical precedence.

So to get a gauge on Joe's stand on the Amendment at this moment in time: Here's the scorecard.

The Scandinavia research that says kids end up worse off and the divorce and not-marrying rates get even worse is about 40 percent of the reason for my opposition. The argument that government should only provide incentives for couple with the potential to reproduce is about 30 percent. The religious argument and the notion society is going to hell in a handbag is about 10 percent. Undecided, is about 20 percent. That comprises the "Joe Supports The Marriage Amendment" Pie Chart.

Jonathan of Equality Loudoun was in attendance at tonight's NOVA TownHall/Help Save Loudoun meeting. Glad he could return the favor. No Amendment-related stuff came up, but he gave us a good report and didn't totally call me a homophobe, so I think we're cool.

I hope this gives an inkling of where I'm at. It's a work in progress. I hope our commenters will see that we are at least thinking things through at NOVA TownHall, and trying to be more than an answering machine.

Welcome to Jonathan also; our spasmodic spam filter delayed his post - sorry, dude!

Marty, thanks for joining the debate.

More later...

Let's start with Scandinavia. First of all, let me point out that most of Scandinavia does not have gay marriage, they have legally recognized gay civil unions. Only the Netherlands has gay marriage. The argument that Scandinavia represents a test case for gay marriage was first put forward by Stanley Kurtz. But there are some very significant flaws in his reasoning. First of all marriage rates actually went up in Scandinavia after gay civil union laws were intituted. Divorce rates have not gone up. Kurtz ignores this and claims that the number of children born out of wedlock increased. Actually these rates were increasing long before gay civil union laws were passed and the rates of increase have since slowed down after the laws were passed. These rates are comparable to what has happened in countries where gay civil unions are not recognized, such as the United States. Even if the statistics did not contradict Kurtz's claims he fails to show any causal effect between gay civil union laws and heterosexual marriage, divorce or out-of-wedlock birth rates. Here are a couple articles that dispute Kurtz's contentions:

http://www.slate.com/id/2100884/

http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/issues/perverted.html

Kurtz has been a longtime opponent of gay marriage and the Scandinavia studies are just his latest attempt to justify his opposition after the fact. Here are a couple of pieces from the National Review that refute his claims:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-rauch081001.shtml
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-rauch080601.shtml

You might also be interested in this interview with Dale carpenter, which lays out a conservative case for same-sex marriage:

http://craigwestover.blogspot.com/2005/01/reference-interview-with-dale.html

As to the notion that government should offer benefits to couples with the "potential to reproduce," what makes you think that gay couples don't have the potential to reproduce? There are already gay couples that are reproducing and raising children through artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, etc. You contend that government benefits are "course" but they don't have to be. Government could recogize only heterosexual couples that reproduce very easily. Of course, then you would have to decide what to do about couples that adopt. Should their children be penalized? Perhaps you could only recognize couples that are raising children. I doubt any of these proposals would be very popular. In fact, gay couples are already raising children and marriage laws as they are currently written penalize children in these families. If you really cared about the welfare of children, it seems to me you would want to rectify this situation.

By the way, the articles that Sophrosyne referred to were all studies that looked at the effects of divorce on children. The analysis of these studies ignored the traumatic effects of divorce itself and drew the conclusion that two parents are better than one. They did not, however, have anything to say about whether two parents being the same sex makes any difference whatsoever. In fact, there are no studies that conclude that children raised by two same-sex parents are significantly worse off than children raised by two opposite sex parents.

I would argue that the religious argument, though it may provide some reason for your wishing you could prove gay marriage is bad for society ultimately shouldn't have a place in a policy discussion in the home state of Thomas Jefferson, who argued very articulately why religious belief should not be the basis of law (and nor should laws prevent people from exercising their religious beliefs).

If you do think society is going to Hell, I submit there are other more pressing reasons for this such as the high divorce rate. Ironically, gay marriage or civil union laws would actually have the effect of bringing gay people into a conservative institution, marriage, that is suffering difficulties that have nothing whatsoever to do with gays. If you think homosexuality itself is the reason we are going to Hell, then it would make more sense to fight for reinstituting sodomy laws (though Virginia's sodomy laws were actually applicable to heterosexual couples as well). Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made that a bit difficult.

And let me just mention once again that Sophrosyne's contention that there are certain immutable characteristics of marriage laws in Virginia and that gays have the freedom to marry as long as they meet those rules is ridiculous. Sophrosyne lists those rules as being:

1) Cannot already be married (i.e. marriage is a monogamous relationship)
2) Be an adult and marry and adult (i.e. between those of legal age to give full consent)
3) Cannot marry a close family member (i.e. no incest)
4) Must marry a human (needs no explanation)
5) Spouse must be of the opposite sex (i.e. the union of the two complementary parts of humanity)

Of course, what she is saying is that gay people have the right to marry someone, just not their partner, which is absurd. being able to marry anyone as long as it's not the person you love is hardly an example of "freedom." As I have shown, however, these "rules" have gone through quite a bit of change in the last couple centuries. Until 1967, there was a sixth rule forbidding a white person from marrying a black person. In 1792, in addition to forbidding interracial marriage, Virginia marriage law included a number of other rules: people of different religions could only be married if they had the permission of ministers from both parishes. In addition to forbidding marriages between blood relatives, a marriage between a son and stepmother, his uncle's wife, a father his son's wife, etc., were also forbidden. Girls as young as 12 were permitted to marry with permission of their parents. A person who was married could remarry if their spouse was "beyond the seas by the space of seven years."

So, in other words, three of Sophrosyne's unchangeable criteria for marriage ((what constitutes an adult, what constitutes a relative, what constitutes bigamy) have actually changed over the years. I think we can all agree that the provision that your partner should be human can stay (though animal lovers may disagree and it may come under reconsideration if we encounter comely sentient beings from other planets in the future). But the criterion that partners should be of opposite sexes is one that seems more and more arbitrary as society inevitably evolves. Even if this amendment is passed, it is not likely to change the fact that gay people are already forming long-term commitments and are already raising families whether you like it or not. That is not likely to change whether this amendment is passed or not.

I think amending the Bill of Rights in the Virginia Constitution is a major step that should be undertaken only to prevent great harm to society. I fail to see what great harm is being prevented here.

And for the record, Joe, I never once said you were a homophobe.

Something that has occurred to me during this whole debate is that this is a ballot initiative, not an argument before the Supreme Court.

In a democracy, people are allowed to vote their beliefs. Although the media hammers on normal Americans for believing in God and voting on their moral convictions, thankfully, this is not against the law. Unless the gay marriage advocates are able to confuse the electorate into believing that the amendment is not about preventing gay marriage and civil unions, they will vote for the amendment by a wide margin. The best hope that the gay advocates have is to confuse people. I don't call that sophisticated debate.

The pre-Alito Supreme Court has consistently held that the states/federal government only need a rational basis for facially neutral laws disproportionately affecting homosexuals outside of the bedroom, and we have more than met that standard in this discussion. Sqawk all you want, but this standard is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

I will concede that many Virginians will likely vote for the amendment solely on the basis that they believe that homosexuality is a perversion, but as I mentioned before, this is their right as voters. In a democratic vote, your opinion is just as valid as theirs despite either party's motivation.

As to a U.S. Constitutional standard, there is a rational basis for an understanding that a redefinition of marriage is a great risk for society. Soph is right that children thrive best when they have the chance to have a father AND a mother, not two of a kind. Stable families that produce productive children is the ultimate object of marriage from a societal standpoint. If we don't have that, we will end up like Europe and Japan with an extremely reduced number of young people.

Marty, Thanks for stopping by, I hope you continue to explicate your perspective.

Jonathan, I think you've stated the question well at your site. (Except I forget what Kafkesque mean.)

One of the reasons we have courts, Joe (which conservatives seem to forget) is that they are a check on the tyranny of the majority. If people were allowed to vote their beliefs without regard to the harm it causes minorities we would probably still have segregation in this country at least in some places. You are free to vote for whatever you want regardless of the harm it causes a minority population but that law must stand up to a constitutional test that guarantees due process for all American citizens. Beyond that as an ethical human being one would hope that you could not in your conscience vote for something that would harm a minority because of your own beliefs and prejudices but that is for each person to answer to his or her own conscience.

You are free to believe that a family with one mother and one father is better than a family with same-sex parents but you don't really have evidence to prove that. This amendment will not alter the fact that those families exist, it will only continue to penalize the children of those families by denying them certain benefits.

I have presented plenty of civil, reasonable arguments for why this amendment should not pass and you have not refuted any of them, only accused me of "confusing" the issue and strained for justification and rationalization for your support of this amendment. all the while claiming you are open minded about it.

I suggest you read what I have written and the links I suggested and then come back with rational arguments refuting what I have presented--if you can. If you cannot, then I suggest there is something more to your support of this amendment than you claim.

Sorry, Joe, I apologize. I thought you wrote the post that Singleton wrote and that was the sum total of your answer. So I await your response and offer my sincere regrets for the mix-up.

I appreciate all the links and opinions you've sent; I have not refuted them or agreed with them because, as I said, I have to divide my time among a bunch - too many - projects at the moment. I did not plan to even get involved in the gay marriage debate for weeks and had already determined to let others fight that fight because I'm so busy on other fronts. That hasn't quite worked out for me.

I made the mistake, I guess, of piping up about the "bigotry," "homophobia," and - oh, there it is again! - "prejudices" labels that keep getting lobbed in our direction, and have been drawn into discussing the topic.

I read much of what you wrote with interest; I only said you "confused" issues when you in fact confused issues.

...there is something more to your support of this amendment than you claim.

Over and over and over and over...From the very beginning and all the way through, on this topic and every other one, you all on the other side question our motives, or insinuate - or outright accuse us of - bigotry.

This is funny: Last night I was talking to someone local who had read some of our exchanges on immigration, and her take on you all was "They're just bullies, they're not trying to argue or convince anyone of anything. What did they say when someone reported about crime and strange people on her lawn? 'Oh poor little girl, frightened of the scary immigrants.' Hah. They're just wasting your time. They're just wasting your time."

It's also funny that the only (I think) actual gay people who have weighed in here managed to do so without making ANY personal accusations whatsoever.

I don't think I've made any negative personal comments about any of you, except for the one post yesterday or the day before where I talked about the dishonest arguments. So that's one for me, and almost every other comment for our opponents.

"...something more to your support then you claim.."? What the hell, man? What the friggin' hell? Why do you even think that way? Is there some foundational liberal belief that people who oppose them are evil or something?

How about if I concluded every argument with some insinuation like "I fully realize, however, there are certain things you just can't understand"?

Maybe if I can't refute all of your arguments I'll end up having my mind changed and agreeing with you. Did you ever think of that possibility?

Using a pseudonym is fine, actually the longer this blog goes on the more I realize it's probably what I should have done. But I know there is an actual human being behind it, sitting down there at the bottom of the missile silo. I think that human being ought to give some thought to where the bombs are originating from.

If you come out and say, "Joe, you are right, I think you have the 'evil' gene" I promise to respect your belief, and everything will be square between us henceforth.

Zimzo, Obviously, the comment above was written before you noted you thought I wrote what Singleton wrote. I went for coffee and got sidetracked before hitting "send."

So I don't know if any of my previous comment has relevance, but there it is.

Here's what I said Joe: "If you cannot [present actual arguments in support of the gay marriage amendment], then I suggest there is something more to your support of this amendment than you claim." As I said, I made this statement believing that you weren't going to bother making any arguments in favor of the amendment and so I was wondering, therefore, what in fact was behind your support of it.

The fact is, that the amendment discriminates against gay people by its very nature. As of yet, I have no idea what is motivating your support of this amendment. You offer the "harm to children" argument almost as an afterthought. You claim homosexuality is "wrong," then you backtrack and amend it to "wrong for me."

You say I am "confusing" the issue, but the impression I get is that you are already confused without my help. I don't think you have thought out this issue very clearly. I don't think you have thought about its impact on gay people or society. I think your support of it is more of a gut reaction and you haven't clearly thought out your arguments for supporting it. I think that unfortunately a lot of voters will probably go to the polls without having thought it out very much either, which is too bad.

Is that homophobic? I don't think so. Are some people who support the amendment homophobic? Sure. I think that you will admit that. Nor do I think people who are opposed to illegal immigration are necessarily racist, though once again I don't think many of them have given a great deal of thought to how their actions impact on illegal immigrants and how some of this response is based on fear and misinformation. I don't think it makes me a "bully" to point this out. You may disagree.

In the last couple decades views of gay people changed dramatically. Why is this? I think it is because more people know gay people in their families and among their friends and they see that gay people are not evil. Clearly, this has not changed everyone's mind but it has changed quite a few.

Instead of getting defensive every time someone questions your motives (which are still pretty unclear), why don't you use this as an opportunity to think out your feelings about gay people and your position on this issue? What is the harm to society by either passing or not passing this amendment? What is the impact on gay people and on straight people? Where do your notions about gay people come from and are they accurate? You say you have gay friends: Do you ever talk to them about their lives? Have they ever suffered discrimination? How are they different from you and how are they the same? Do you ever wonder? Do you ever ask?

As I say I have avoided calling you homophobic and I hereby cease speculating on your motivations until you come up with some tangible reasons as to how you can support an amendment that discriminates against gay people while at the same time having nothing against gay people.

I don't need to spend any time at all thinking about or talking to gay people. I went to probably one of the gayest colleges in the country in terms of the percentage of the student body, in the 1970s. I formed my opinion at that time and it has not changed one iota. The only way I could possibly have a more sympathetic or humane attitude toward homosexual people as people, would be to become gay myself and personally go to bed with every single one of them.

If I say I am currently opposed to the Amendment based on things I've heard about and thought about, but because of other time commitments I am too busy to spell it all out right now, that's just the simple fact. There are a lot of dimensions to this issue, and it's a very touchy issue, and in this case I choose to take the necessary time to say what I think in an organized and comprehensive manner.

This means reviewing and responding to different arguments in a pre-emptive fashion rather than in a series of back and forth reactions in the comments section.

I don't mind the back and forth in the comments section, mind you, obviously I like it. You want to go toe to toe on immigration, the war, football, wine, 24, guns, or a host of other topics, I'm your huckleberry.

But on gay marriage and probably some other issues that haven't come up here yet, I choose to spend more time developing my ideas.

It took me almost an hour, for instance, just to read the two articles Stay Puft sent me, not to mention taking any notes or thinking. By way of comparison, it takes me the same amount of time to do each of the following, many of which I do every single day: go to the supermarket; make dinner; do work in the yard or garage or house; talk to a family member; read the newspapers...you get the idea.

I looked at my life last month and said, I am overcommitted, something has to go. Becoming the resident expert and apologist on the topic of the Virginia Marriage Amendment was one of the things I jettisoned.

I'm picking it back up, but believe me, I have a lot on my plate.

So, how about them Cowboys?

What I laid out are the standards of the Supreme Court concerning homosexuals. According to the court, they are not an insular minority in the same way that African Americans are. Therefore, the Court has required a lower threshold of scrutiny for facially neutral laws (laws that affect everyone equally-ie. noone may marry someone of the same gender).

The courts were not put in place to stop the tyranny of the majority (that's what the Bill of Rights is for-misinterpreted as it is) but rather to arbitrate disputes, and as for this dispute, until the Court warms to your particular leftwing agenda, laws of the majority, no matter how annoying, will stand.

And just in case the courts do screw up again, we are working on passing amendments to constitutions (state and national) just like this one.

Joe:

No one has called anyone a
"bigot", but it was I, I believe, who first dared utter the "H" word here. I believe I directed the word toward Charles' COMMENTS on gays at slumber parties, which seemed particularly rooted in an irrational fear (phobia) of the presence of gays (homo) in groups. I never meant to call anyone a homophobe, I was attempting to call attention to the fact that (some of )Charles STATEMENTS were, by definition, homophobic.

if any non-homophobes were personally offended, I am sorry.

now, re: Scandinavia: If you could, when you comment on this argument, please address the problem that zimzo and myself have pointed out; that it fails to clearly show any causal relation. Just because two things happen doesn't mean they're connected. Again, this graph makes that point
nicely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pirateschart.jpg

re: religion: the bible says a lot of crazy, contradictory stuff. etc. But I must say that, overall, it makes a much stronger pro-polygamy case than it does an anti-gay case:

http://www.biblicalpolygamy.com/
(for real!)

peace!

singleton:

if, as you say (and i agree) the bill of rights is meant to protect people from a tyrany of the majority, then how can you support using it as a tool of a "tyrany of the majority"?

Joe, if you don't have the bandwidth to fully engage the amendment question, you probably don't have time to read Franz Kafka. Why don't one of your other TownHall bloggers (Charles, Singleton?) answer the Ann Null question over on my site.

Let's talk about guns. Imagine the consequences of the precedent set by the amendment. Whenever a majority doesn't like a behavior (e.g. owning guns), they can modify behavior by amending the constitution. There go our gun rights.

I also chuckle when I think that I'm more of a danger to society if I assert that I'm married to a man than I am if I open carry a gun down the street. Go figure.

Zimzo and stay puft, why don't you guys drop a note to www.equalityloudoun.org. We could use your help.

btw Joe, thanks for providing a service for queer hookups. ;)

The Constitution was meant to be amended. That's why each constitution (federal and state) has a mechanism for change. The federal constitution has been amended to eliminate slavery and to empower women to vote. Some ideas have their time and some never do. Most Americans and Virginians want to draw a line at gay marriage which is their right. You know that whole self-government principle.

As for the gun argument, a significant majority of Americans could amend the constitution to ban gun ownership if they saw fit, but most Americans support gun ownership unlike gay marriage. This whole democracy in a republic thing is tough sometimes, huh?

As for the bill of rights thing, I am not asserting any part of the bill of rights as a justification for this amendment. It stands on its own merits.

As for you guys hooking up, glad we could help out.

Finally, Jonathan, you are also free to assert that you are married to a man, but it simply wouldn't be a reality unless you move north.

Thanks for all the links, they are very helpful. Zimzo and Stay Puft have exhibited genuine intellecutual honesty in providing sources.

I've long been a skeptic about global warming, which forces me now to argue the data in the pie chart actually represents unkempt, unemployed hotel doormen who happen to say "Y'argh."

If anyone wants to address his question, here is the link to Jonathan's site.

Normally our matchmaking service is restricted to heterosexual couples who can provide certificates of fertility and sign a letter of intent to produce 3 new Republicans within 5 years; but in this case we have agreed to make an exception.

singleton,

i didn't say you used the bill of rights to argue in favor of the amendment, only that it was interesting for you to point to the bill of rights as protection from a "tyranny of the majority" given that you support amending it in such a way that would allow the majority to exercise that exact kind of tyranny.

it's also interesting that you would bring up "democracy in a republic" since a ballot initiative, being a form of direct democracy, is a way to circumvent the republican apparatus

It's a democracy in a republic because we have elements of both. Sometimes, our government acts strictly as a republic and others as a democracy. In this case, the assembly and the public has to sign off on something so we have both in this instance as is usually the case with amendments to constitutions. It's America as its finest.

Yes, I'll agree that the Constitution has safeguards for minorities such as the Bill of Rights, but those exceptions were meant to be limited and what your lobby is after is not among them.

Maybe you should read the Federalist Papers, Singleton, which was written by the authors of the Constitution and illustrates their "original intent":

Federalist No. 51
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."

The entire system of government outlined in the Constitution was designed both to give power to the majority and to provide checks and balances on the excesses of the majority. While the House of Representatives was elected directly by the people, the Senate originally was appointed by state legislators. Judges are appointed by the executive and confirmed by the Senate and given lifetime appointments which isolates them from politics and factionalism. In Federalist No. 10 the dangers of factionalism are given as the reason we have a republican and not a democratic form of government, which is susceptible to factions (whether of the majority or the minority). A "faction" is described as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

So while power does reside in the majority, the Founding Fathers were indeed very worried about that power being unchecked. The Senate, the Judiciary and to some extent the Executive (who is not directly elected by the people but by "electors")all provide checks on the "tyranny of the majority."

The Bill of Rights and other amendments such as the 14th Amendment provide further safeguards against abuse of civil liberties but checks against the tyranny of the majority were already built into the Constitution. And the Amendment process was made deliberately difficult, once again to guard against factionalism.

As to your contention that the Judiciary is only supposed to "arbitrate disputes," I'm afraid you lost this battle in 1803 when Marbury v Madison established the principle of judicial review, which is implied in Articles III and IV of the Constitution and derived from British law. But this principle was also outlined in Federalist No. 78:

"The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body."

Of course, your desire to take away this fundamental principle is nothing new. In Alexis de Tocqeville's Democracy in America in Chapter 16: Causes Which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States he writes: "I am aware that a secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United States....by thus lessening the independence of the judiciary they have attacked not only the judicial power, but the democratic republic itself."

Hey Joe,

The thing that keeps reasserting itself when I read your explanation (in your June 21, 1:45 am comment) is this unexamined assumption that people somehow make a decision about their sexual orientation. That's why I keep pointing out the slippage between "wrong" and "wrong for me." I'm not sure you understood what I meant by that.

When you describe why you are heterosexual, that slippage is very evident. You are heterosexual because 1) presumably, you like girls, and 2) the thought of sex with a man squicks you. Ok, that's pretty much how everyone experiences awareness of their orientation. It's just the way they are. So how do you get from there to calling this a rationale for your sexual preference, as if you deliberately chose it?

The distinction I'm looking at isn't between "I think being gay is wrong" and "I don't think being wrong makes you a horrible human being," it's between "I'm straight, so gay sex is a turn off for me" and "I think it's wrong to be gay." It's the latter two that I see you conflating, and I don't understand what you mean by "wrong" in that context: How it can be "wrong" to be what you are? Unless you think that gay people "choose" to be who we are. And that isn't consistent with the way anybody experiences their orientation, including the way you have described your own, although you then label it a "rationale."

If this seems like a subtle difference to you, it's an important one. The assumptions that underlie our analyses of these questions need to be unpacked, especially when they appear internally inconsistent.

Singleton:

Since 59% of Virginians say they support civil unions, it seems that it is the advocates of the amendment who will need to confuse people.

David,

Now I see what you are asking. Yes they are two different uses of "wrong." Not sure what I was thinking when I said "wrong, or let's say, wrong for me" but part of by mind was on something else while I was involved in the discussion. That was an almost absurd rhetorical shortcut past at least two additional paragraphs of needed explanation.

This does need to be unpacked in the longer piece I am writing. Thanks much.

The founders were concerned about oppression of minorities like regional minorities(smaller states). Homosexual marriage/civil union was obviously not what they meant. There is no orginalist intent argument that can be made with any level of honesty that would support a redefinition of marriage. The 14th amendment was passed after the civil war for African Americans, not gays.

A dispute does not have to be limited to private parties. I don't contest Marbury but that was a dispute among the branches of government. This is why the courts have the ability to INTERPRET laws, not to write them. That's why we need this amendment to make sure that courts don't strike down the defense of marriage law. Courts look at different interpretations of a law and find the one that they think the legislature meant (when they exercise their proper role).

The arguments about the tyranny of the majority are off the mark as well. Every law we have restricts some minority or majority. From speeding to drug use, we prohibit actions that are deemed to be unacceptable to that ole tyrannical majority. If the law does not violate the constitution, it is upheld despite the limitation on the minority.

Alexis de Tocqeville, John Marshall, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, the Radical Republicans from the Civil War, and others would be writers on novatownhall.com/blog if they were still living and on our side of this issue.

David, mind providing a link to your poll?

singleton,

I understand our system of government. I was just saying... but ok.

Zimzo,

that was a beautiful post. Fed. 10 is probably my favorite. Those Founding Fathers were some clever fellows. to bad the revolution has been betrayed!

David,

"The assumptions that underlie our analyses of these questions need to be unpacked, especially when they appear internally inconsistent."

well put. over the course of this discussion, people have become defensive, accusing people of "psychoanalysing" but I think this 'unpacking' is necessary to reach an understanding

Joe,

keep on rockin' in the free world

Singleton says:

There is no orginalist intent argument that can be made with any level of honesty...

Please show the originalist intent to protect "marriage" and explain whether or not the state of marriage circa 2006 is the marriage that the founding fathers intended to protect.

Of course tyranny of the majority arguments are on mark. Skip the first paragraph of the amendment. If marriage is a good thing and it makes couples healthier and happier, how can the majority deny a couple the right to "create a legal status that intends to approximate..."? What's the rational basis for that?

p.s.

singleton, I didn't see your latest. just wondering how you know what the Founding Fathers meant.

this latest comparison between gays and speeders is an improvement on the previous one of gays to wife beaters (made by moderate: http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/06/family_foundation_marriage_cam.php#comment-1686)
so maybe we're getting somewhere?
but are speeders really a minority? I mean, aside from the literal sense that most people drive faster than the speed limit, speeding is a choice, I suppose, and the negative effects of (excessive) speeding on society are obvious and immediate.

drug use probably does have an impact on society. tobacco and alcohol surely create their share of problems. Apparently society has decided that the trade off is worth it, or simply that people need to be free to decide for themselves.
but this comparison to drug use seems particularly relevant, maybe there's a lesson to be learned from the whole 18th-21st amendment thing...

Well, it looks like this thread is dead. Please entertain a few post mortem points.

1. singleton's rebut of my argument actually bolstered it. I said:

Whenever a majority doesn't like a behavior (e.g. owning guns), they can modify behavior by amending the constitution. There go our gun rights.

And singleton's response was:

As for the gun argument, a significant majority of Americans could amend the constitution to ban gun ownership if they saw fit, but most Americans support gun ownership unlike gay marriage.

I hope that Singleton was not saying that ”majority rule is fine as long as I agree with the majority.” I really don’t understand his argument, but there are two larger issues.

1. Law doesn't influence behavior so much as social pressure. That's why people drive 80 MHP on route 95, and that's why Attorney General McDonnell can't seem to remember whether or not he has violated Virginia's sodomy law. On the other side, people don't go around burning flags even though the Supreme Court found flag burning to be a legitimate form of free speech.

2. As a society, we must maintain steadfast adherence to core democratic principles. We must not allow ourselves to become susceptible to manipulation by savvy marketing campaigns and appeals to gut impulses.

This amendment is not about marriage equality. It's about the rights of individuals to enter into legal arrangements that "intend to approximate the design, significance, qualities or effects of marriage". In English (our official language?), it's about the right of non-married people to form families. If we try to stop that, we’ll create a nanny-state Frankenstein monster government that regulates family formation, and invites legal action by greedy trial lawyers who will make their living meddling with “unmarried” family relationships.

Jonathan,

Not quite dead, as they say in the movie...

I think you are correct in that Singleton did agree with, or bolster, your argument. I'm finding people on your side of the issue saying the same thing, I think Dale Carpenter and Jonathan Rauch are two examples (forgive me if I don't search out the links just now). Both were arguing in the context of the federal amendment and saying basically, let's leave it to the voters in the states. (Also, they were saying let's be sure to have a few states trying it, so we have a basis for future studies on the social impact).

I can't address the founding fathers questions at this point; I'm not a law guy. I believe Singleton will be back here but if not, all or most of these points are going to be revived in a new post whenever I get done with it.

Your final paragraph is very interesting. I don't think I understand the last sentence, but the first part poses the question in a manner I had not seen before. I thought it was about 'marriage equality' because - well, for obvious reasons considering the language being used in the debate on both sides. Therefore our side has spent a great number of column inches on the 'redefinition' of marriage argument.

Well, to be continued...

Thanks for the good input here.

I'll just add in a few comments and then let y'all continue your involved conversation.

1. Who cares? I find it insulting that in the face of the climate crisis, the NoVA transportation crisis, the most failed administration in American history, mounting debt, and the loss of our leadership position in the world, the Gerrymandered Old Party actually has America talking about whether or not the state should define whether religions should be allowed to determine which couples can marry. It's called the first Amendment...

2. If this were really about "protecting marriage" we would educate women, because the characteristic which correlates positively with successful marriage is the educational level of wives. Also, if we wanted to protect marriage we'd get all of the states that have outlawed homosexual union to immediately repeal those laws and amendments: where homosexual unions are illegal, the divorce rate is highest (lowest in Mass, btw).

3. In Virginia, the law is so egregiously written that we don't even know what this stupid thing could do. The Amendment in Ohio was written much more narrowly, but it was used to determine that domestic violence laws don't apply if a couple isn't married. What? Yes, that's right, if a woman is living with an abusive lover, she effectively deserves whatever abuse he can heap on her.

This isn't a marriage Amendment. At best it's an Amendment to make Unmarried couples in to Second-class citizens. It could be the Amendment that made it just peachy keen to beat the hell out of your girlfriend. The only thing that we do know about this thing is that it's an excuse for right-wing extremists to use fear to motivate their Republican base.

Gays are coming to ruin your marriage, go elect Republicans.

Josh,

I think the Ohio domestic battery laws are based on marriage, whereas Virginia's are based on households. Also, that one case in Ohio is still in the court system. It may not be a good example of anything relating to the Virginia Amendment.

Also, I heartily agree we need to remove the barriers to education currently faced by women in Virginia. If you'll join me, I'd like to propose that Governor Kaine sign an executive order allowing women, finally, to attend college.

This can be the first step toward allowing women to become doctors and lawyers and, down the road, pressuring the University of Virginia to become coed.

Thanks Joe,

Follow our work and you'll learn what the amendment is really about.

I read Dale Carpenter's Cato piece and attended the Cato debate between Maggie Gallagher and William Eskridge. Jonathan Rauch was there too. You can find my write up here.

The fact that there are conflicting rulings in Ohio merely demonstrates that the intent of their amendment is ambiguous. This will continue to work its way through the courts for years, leaving abuse victims in limbo during the most dangerous possible time - when they are attempting to leave their abusive relationship. That's when most murders by the abuser happen.

I know you're trying to be flippant about women's position in society, but the fact remains that the vast majority of domestic violence victims are women, and most of them are unmarried to their abusers. I hardly think that a good solution for these women is to get married to the man who is kicking the crap out of them.

As for Virginia domestic violence law being defined on the basis of household (co-habiting and/or sharing a child), if that definition is ruled in violation of the constitution, it will no longer be the definition. The constitution trumps statutory law, as I recall. I would look to the expertise of the people with boots on the ground in the domestic violence field for guidance on this question. They are the ones who actually go to court with these women to obtain protective orders. Agencies across Virginia are already assessing whether they can expand shelter space because they are expecting clients to need longer stays due to the impact of this amendment, should it pass.

I'm baaaacccck.

Than Charles, apparently a newspaper columnist,
I have an freelance opinion column published once a week in the local paper, it's a hobby, I couldn't make a living at it. Didn't want it to sound more important than it is.

joined in, claiming again that gays harm society.
I have not yet asserted that gays "harm" society, nor is that my argument for the Marriage Amendment. I HAVE argued separately that the existance of homosexuality is at odds with our societal norms.

Yet despite being paid for putting ideas into words, he was unable to make the case beyond saying that gay children would make slumber parties impossible to chaperon.
A bit of an oversimplification, but that was not an argument of gay people "harming" society, simply that homosexuality is at odds with our societal structure.

He spelt a lot of time picking other people's arguments apart line by line,
I believe I only did line-by-lines (like this one) for a couple of posts which were responses to me. I did not argue anybody else's points.

but when someone pointed out problems with his reasoning,
I remember no such assertion made by the opposition during the time I was active in that thread. I still see no counter-claims to my arguments regarding societal norms, societal perogatives, and the existance of homosexuals.

they were guilty of failing to see the brilliance of his arguments "big picture"
Their "sin" was much less, they merely missed the point. I even claimed responsibility for that, realising that I had introduced a secondary line of discussion and it seemed to confuse people.

Again in this thread I see people talking about "banning relationships", "banning homosexuality", and "making illegal" partnerships. NONE of these charges have any merit with regards to the Marriage Amendment, which only precludes GOVERNMENT action, and does nothing to prevent private arrangements.

My ONE stated reason at this time to support the Marriage Amendment is that I see nothing compelling in "gay marriage" to justify special government recognition and encouragement of said "marriages". The amendment is the only mechanism to ensure that our government does not actively encourage or support gay relationships. It says nothing about whether such relationships are "good", or "bad" -- as I pointed out, a brother caring for a sibling is an obviously GOOD thing, but I see no reason for government to encourage or provide a "marriage"-type support for that arrangement either.

I've seen nobody provide a good reason to treat a gay couple differently under the law than any other non-reproductive relationship.

Joe (June 21, 2006 01:45 AM) writes:This one is the sticky wicket. If gay marriage has no ill effects, it's crazy to pass a constitutional amendment against it. That would be a great big net minus.

I disagree. We are not banning personal relationships, we are deciding who gets special treatment. Right now, only male/female "committed" relationships get special treatment. While imperfectly applied, it is clear that society benefits from stable male/female relationships, so government support of that institution is rational.

Nobody has explained why of ALL OTHER possible relationships, the gay relationship should also be singled out for special, preferential treatment. I see no reason to do so. But since courts are granting those relationships special treatment, we need an amendment to stop the courts.

If the courts were legalizing polygamy, we would push for an amendment to stop that as well.

zimzo at June 21, 2006 09:00 AM said:

As to the notion that government should offer benefits to couples with the "potential to reproduce," what makes you think that gay couples don't have the potential to reproduce? There are already gay couples that are reproducing and raising children through artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, etc.

There are single mothers doing this same thing. And the single mother's children are "penalized" with the current marriage definition as much as the gay parent's children are -- but nobody is arguing that we should allow a single mother to "marry" herself, to get the "benefits" government supplies to being "married".

Of course, that is silly -- but what if you had a system where single mothers could hook up with other single mothers in a pact, providing both sets of children with secondary benefits, a legal second guardian, etc. That would certainly be better for the children than the single mother on her own. Should we legalize THAT arrangement as a "marriage" to confer all the benefits (social security, visitation, etc) of marriage on those "coupled" single mothers? What about if me and my wife want to support a single mother? Should we allow a "marriage" as a simple contractual device to support her? What about a brother and sister?

My point is that if we are going to draw a line ANYWHERE, the place it is now drawn is the logical place to do so. It has the benefit of thousands of years of cultural approval, universal understanding, a grounding in our physical makeup and characteristics, and widespread acceptance.

All things equal, it is better for a child to be raised by their biological parents. While marriage now defined doesn't guarantee that, gay marriage guarantees against it.

zimzo at June 21, 2006 11:52 AM wrote: You are free to believe that a family with one mother and one father is better than a family with same-sex parents but you don't really have evidence to prove that. This amendment will not alter the fact that those families exist, it will only continue to penalize the children of those families by denying them certain benefits

I presume zimzo that you are not arguing, as some do, that "We don't need this amendment because Virginia law already prohibits same-sex marriage and civil unions", as some argue.

I just want to make sure -- you support both defeating this amendment, AND having government officially recognize and provide equal benefits to same-sex relationships.

Welcome back, Charles. Glad you're feeling better.

You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal norms." First of all, so what? Interracial marriage is not a "societal norm" either if you're judging by sheer numbers. Neither is interreligious marriage. So what's your point?

You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal structure." You're going to have to explain that to me, Charles. How is homosexuality at odds with our "societal structure"? If you mean that the societal structure is based on families headed by two people shouldn't we be encouraging gays to build similar structures? Wouldn't that make society stronger? What makes a family headed up by two people of the same sex so much worse than one headed by people of different sexes that we should discourage their formation.

You write: "All things equal, it is better for a child to be raised by their biological parents." You keep saying it is better to have children raised by a mother and father, you even add "biological" to that statement, but you have no evidence to prove that children raised by two parents of the same sex or children raised by adoptive parents are any worse off. Sorry if I don't just take your word for it Charles.

You write: "Nobody has explained why of ALL OTHER possible relationships, the gay relationship should also be singled out for special, preferential treatment." Gee, Charles, I could ask you the same question. Of all other possible relationships why does this Marrage Amendment specifically single out gay relationships? Isn't that what we are really arguing about? Why should the Virginia Bill of Rights be intentionally amended to enshrine discrimination specifically against gay relationships (though in fact, it is so vaguely written that it will also discriminate against certain heterosexual relationships as well, despite its intent to single out gays).

You write: "There are single mothers doing this same thing. And the single mother's children are "penalized" with the current marriage definition as much as the gay parent's children are -- but nobody is arguing that we should allow a single mother to "marry" herself, to get the "benefits" government supplies to being "married." It's when you write stuff like this that I wish I were a fly inside of your mind observing what goes on in there. You know, you're right no one is arguing that a person should be allowed to marry themselves but I have no doubt that this will be added to the other slippery slope arguments of gay marriage leading to people marrying their pets, society being forced to legalize polygamy, etc. If the point of government recognition of marriage is as you say it is (and I don't concede that it is) to encourage a relationship that would best take care of children, then why not encourage gay families as opposed to single people raising kids? Are you actually arguing that a gay couple raising a kid is no better than a single mother raising a kid? If so, based on what evidence?

You write: "My point is that if we are going to draw a line ANYWHERE, the place it is now drawn is the logical place to do so. It has the benefit of thousands of years of cultural approval, universal understanding, a grounding in our physical makeup and characteristics, and widespread acceptance." Again, for thousands of years the idea of someone marrying someone of a different race, religion or class was not acceptable. Why not draw the line there if that is your basis for drawing lines? The fact is societies change. A majority of people now accept the idea of gay relationships and aren't swayed by your "logic." You have shown no evidence whatsoever for why gay relationships should be discriminated against. Your only argument is that they have been in the past so they should be in the future.

Welcome back, Charles. Glad you're feeling better.

You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal norms." First of all, so what? Interracial marriage is not a "societal norm" either if you're judging by sheer numbers. Neither is interreligious marriage. So what's your point?

You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal structure." You're going to have to explain that to me, Charles. How is homosexuality at odds with our "societal structure"? If you mean that the societal structure is based on families headed by two people shouldn't we be encouraging gays to build similar structures? Wouldn't that make society stronger? What makes a family headed up by two people of the same sex so much worse than one headed by people of different sexes that we should discourage their formation.

You write: "All things equal, it is better for a child to be raised by their biological parents." You keep saying it is better to have children raised by a mother and father, you even add "biological" to that statement, but you have no evidence to prove that children raised by two parents of the same sex or children raised by adoptive parents are any worse off. Sorry if I don't just take your word for it Charles.

You write: "Nobody has explained why of ALL OTHER possible relationships, the gay relationship should also be singled out for special, preferential treatment." Gee, Charles, I could ask you the same question. Of all other possible relationships why does this Marrage Amendment specifically single out gay relationships? Isn't that what we are really arguing about? Why should the Virginia Bill of Rights be intentionally amended to enshrine discrimination specifically against gay relationships (though in fact, it is so vaguely written that it will also discriminate against certain heterosexual relationships as well, despite its intent to single out gays).

You write: "There are single mothers doing this same thing. And the single mother's children are "penalized" with the current marriage definition as much as the gay parent's children are -- but nobody is arguing that we should allow a single mother to "marry" herself, to get the "benefits" government supplies to being "married." It's when you write stuff like this that I wish I were a fly inside of your mind observing what goes on in there. You know, you're right no one is arguing that a person should be allowed to marry themselves but I have no doubt that this will be added to the other slippery slope arguments of gay marriage leading to people marrying their pets, society being forced to legalize polygamy, etc. If the point of government recognition of marriage is as you say it is (and I don't concede that it is) to encourage a relationship that would best take care of children, then why not encourage gay families as opposed to single people raising kids? Are you actually arguing that a gay couple raising a kid is no better than a single mother raising a kid? If so, based on what evidence?

You write: "My point is that if we are going to draw a line ANYWHERE, the place it is now drawn is the logical place to do so. It has the benefit of thousands of years of cultural approval, universal understanding, a grounding in our physical makeup and characteristics, and widespread acceptance." Again, for thousands of years the idea of someone marrying someone of a different race, religion or class was not acceptable. Why not draw the line there if that is your basis for drawing lines? The fact is societies change. A majority of people now accept the idea of gay relationships and aren't swayed by your "logic." You have shown no evidence whatsoever for why gay relationships should be discriminated against. Your only argument is that they have been in the past so they should be in the future.

Slumber Party Chuck, back from the dead?

well, I don't want to retrace ground we've already been over, but I guess it's been awhile, so... you seem to feel that no one has responded to your ideas. remember those "no brainer" questions you asked? here is a reprinting of the responses I gave on 5/19:

***
"1) Is society WRONG to establish structures where people can be grouped to keep sexually-attracted people separate. Society DOES that every day, is it an appropriate societal function?"

that's a nice red sash you have tied around your waste, Charles. It is WRONG to pretend that such a task is possible in the world we live in. we will just have to deal with it, I suppose. as for the children, when I was younger, I never went to an all-boys party (that would be gay!) in my experience, a little adult supervision goes a long way.

"2) Are gays and lesbians truly, as you state, identical to their heterosexual counterparts EXCEPT for who they find physically attracted?"

a true no brainer: YES

"3) If they are, and if society has a right to group people to avoid groups where there is sexual attraction, how would you EVER put together a group with ANY gay or lesbian people in it without destroying the right of society to prevent it? If that last question is two "homophobic", answer it in this form? How would you ever put a group consisting JUST of gay teens, or lesbian teens, while maintaining society's desire and right to have groups with no sexual attraction?"

given my responses to 1 and 2, I suppose I could just answer, EXEMPT, but that's no fun; I'd be passing up the opportunity to point out that you're living in some sort of asexual fantasy land if you think there's ever been a group of more than just a few humans sans sexual tension.
***

re: your appeal to history; I have already addressed this issue, and am not going to restate my whole POV. suffice it to say that slavery has existed for thousands of years, also.

you ask if I think gov. should support this or that sort of arrangement. I have also already stated my point of view re: government's role in marriage:

http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/06/protecting_marriage_throughout.php#comment-1427

the above link is just a concept, not something that's likely to happen any time soon, but I believe it would solve a lot of problems, including your seeing, "nothing compelling in 'gay marriage' to justify special government recognition and encouragement of said 'marriages'"

also, you insist that marriage is recognized solely for the sake of procreation. (I can see your response now; "I do not "insist," I merely suggest over and over that this is the way things ought to be!" anyway,) I have 2 questions for you:

1. while we're passing amendments, why not also
include a stipulation prohibiting post-menopausal women from marrying?
(I assume your response to this would be something like, "law is an inexact tool," but I don't think that's good enough. if you're going to bother to write an amendment to "define marriage", you can define it as precisely as you want to [in that amendment])

2. Your argument only works as long as people are willing to define marriage as some sort of 'contractual reproductive arrangement', but some (probably most) people view marriage more as an affirmation of their feelings of romantic love for each other. Using THIS definition, there's no reason why gays should not be allowed to marry. So, who are you to define marriage, anyway?

finally, you may not have used the phrase, "gays harm society," but it seems to me that the idea is implicit in your arguments.

now I look forward to seeing all of this re-posted in italics. good day

zimzo at June 24, 2006 02:39 PM writes:
You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal norms." First of all, so what? Interracial marriage is not a "societal norm" either if you're judging by sheer numbers. Neither is interreligious marriage. So what's your point?
Structure was a better word than norm, I'll deal with it next.

You write: "homosexuality is at odds with our societal structure." You're going to have to explain that to me, Charles. How is homosexuality at odds with our "societal structure"? If you mean that the societal structure is based on families headed by two people shouldn't we be encouraging gays to build similar structures? Wouldn't that make society stronger? What makes a family headed up by two people of the same sex so much worse than one headed by people of different sexes that we should discourage their formation.

Societal "structure" is the constructs and applications of events and actions to achieve societal gains. The argument was not about gay marriage, it is about how the presence of homosexuals in the population "degrade" the application of societal controls to maintaing the societal structure. But I'm sure i'm using the words wrong, so let me try this: There are "things that society does" in order to "maintain the society as a functioning, happy organism" (Manners is one of those "things", like opening the door for people, saying please and thank you). We have several of these "thing" which we do to protect children from premature sexual experimentation, and to maintain complete focus on the task of war by our armed forces. The presence of homosexuals in the population degrade these "things", making them less effective.

The best example I can think of is the Priest gay sex scandal (somehow, the media missed the gay part of single male priests having sex with post-pubescent teenage boys). Many churchse had rules which put a woman in the room whenever a priest saw a female, but no such rule was deemed "necessary" in the "non-sexual" atmosphere of priest-boy.

THe problem is that society CANNOT construct an alternate "thing" to control for the presense of homosexuals, because of the very nature of the "logic of sets".

To wit, that you CANNOT put more than two homosexuals together in a group without introducing a sexual component. Whereas you can put hundreds of straight boys together, or hundreds of straight girls, as soon as you put two gay boys together, they might be attracted to each other, if you put a gay boy with a straight boy there is un-returned attraction, same with two lesbians or straight/lesbian female, or gay boy/straight female, or straight boy/gay female.

The ONLY group of homosexual beings that can exist without the possibility of sexual attraction is a gay man with a lesbian woman.

I'll look back to see if anybody has explained either why this is wrong, or whether we think these societal desires are "antiquated" or should be thrown out.

You write: "All things equal, it is better for a child to be raised by their biological parents." You keep saying it is better to have children raised by a mother and father, you even add "biological" to that statement, but you have no evidence to prove that children raised by two parents of the same sex or children raised by adoptive parents are any worse off. Sorry if I don't just take your word for it Charles.
You are correct, I have provided no evidence for that assertion. Do you have evidence that it is better for children to be taken from biological parents and given to foster parents?

When one proposes a radical change to a millenias-old societal construct, that is where the burden of proof lies. My notion is based on "common knowledge which could be wrong, but has not been proven wrong and is the basis for our society. That is a pretty large a-priori hurdle to overcome.

Anyway, I believe the studies do support my claim, it's just I'm not referencing them.

Zimmo also said:
You write: "Nobody has explained why of ALL OTHER possible relationships, the gay relationship should also be singled out for special, preferential treatment." Gee, Charles, I could ask you the same question. Of all other possible relationships why does this Marrage Amendment specifically single out gay relationships? Isn't that what we are really arguing about?
I already answered that question. gay marriage is singled out because it the ONLY additional construct that people (and the courts) are pushing on us at this time. I even noted that if there was an active polygamy lobby and a judge ruled polygamist marriage was required, we'd put that in the amendment as well.

I'm going to stop answering piece-meal. I started just replying to things that were responses to me here, but I want to go back and read the other thread, and this thread, and see if I can write a single comment to cover any and all objections. I'm not saying other comments made to me don't deserve response, just this is an ineffective way of doing so.

I'll leave you with this question -- am I gay? Provide proof.

SPMM: I'll avoid the italics. I've read your comments, I'm going back to read the entire previous thread, and will try to write a more coherent reply later.

so for now I'll just say the reason for government to provide special benefits to marriage are many, and I focused on just the most obvious of them. And I only discussed why government would provide special support to a certain kind of relationship, not what made having a relationship important.

I guess i don't understand because i rather don't like government interfering to begin with. I got married because my religion instructs me to do so, and I could care less that the government made me get a license to do so. If there was NO government recognition of marriage it wouldn't matter to me personally, MY marriage is a sacred covenant between me, my wife, and my God, and has nothing to do with the state.

If the facts themselves cause you to believe gay marriage harms society, that's not my fault, I'm just arguing logical constructs,not the conclusions you might reach from them.

Gee, Charles, reading over your comments it seems to me like you don't want to ban gay marriage, you want to ban gays. I hate to break this to you, Charles, but gays have been around for thousands of years. All of these "societal structures" that you are afraid might be gummed up by gays, have already included gays, from every military in history to every school to every boy scout troop. As much as you might like to find some "societal structure" that is free of this involvement from these menacing gays, I'm afraid you're not going to find one. I would be very curious if you could name one of these "societal structures" that does not have any gay people in it.

If you can name a group that exists on Earth that consists only of straight boys or straight girls, I would be very curious to know how you can be sure of this. I certainly would hate to disabuse you of some of your strongly held notions but gay people can't always be readily identified. Sometimes you can't tell when people are gay and sometimes people who say they are straight actually turn out to be gay! So if gays are "degrading" society I'm not sure how you are going to stop it. An anti-gay Marriage Amendment certainly isn't going to have much effect. Some countries even have the death penalty for homosexuality (not that I'm suggesting you would be in favor of that. You aren't, are you?) and even that has not been successful in eliminating gay people from society.

Another curious statement you made was that "you CANNOT put more than two homosexuals together in a group without introducing a sexual component." Has it ever occurred to you that you could actually put two gay people together who are not attracted to each other? Do you think gay men are attracted to all other men? Are you attracted to all women? Do you think all gay men are attracted to you? If you do, I think you might be flattering yourself a bit.

I have to say once again that I cannot believe we are having this conversation. There seem to be a lot of strange ideas out there about homosexuality that defy common sense.

You have made so many curious statements that I just can't hit them all, but this one stood out: "Do you have evidence that it is better for children to be taken from biological parents and given to foster parents?" Uh, no, Charles, I don't. Who proposed that? And in all this talk of burdens of proof, let me just point out that if you are proposing to amend the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution, the burden of proof is on you to show that it is necessary to do that. Whether it passes or not gay families already exist and they are going to continue to exist so if you think something should be done to stop them from existing, the burden of proof is on you to show why that should be done.

Joe,

Is there a post of mine in the moderation queue?

Charles says:
I got married because my religion instructs me to do so, and I could care less that the government made me get a license to do so. If there was NO government recognition of marriage it wouldn't matter to me personally, MY marriage is a sacred covenant between me, my wife, and my God, and has nothing to do with the state.

Two questions.

1. Have you quantified the cost and effort it would take to obtain the legal benefits of marriage if you had to construct all that yourself?

2. Did your church require that you obtain a state marriage license before they would perform a religious ceremony?

And Charles, forgive me for piling on about this statement.

[I]f society has a right to group people to avoid groups where there is sexual attraction, how would you EVER put together a group with ANY gay or lesbian people in it without destroying the right of society to prevent it?

I don't know about you, but nearly everywhere I go, there is sexual attraction because humans are sexual, and that's a good thing. If you don't like that fact, you can always move to Saudi Arabia, or you can continue to hang with insular communities. The only times I've been in large groups that were completely devoid of sexuality were when I attended an LCRC meeting, and a NoVA TownHall meeting.

Zimzo and Jonathan --

It is hard to discuss real-life impacts when one side is defensive and looking to redefine those impacts away as either irrelevant or homophobic.

I am not talking about banning gays. I am talking about the societal impact of the existance of homosexuality. You are jumping to practical application, while I'm still trying to find out if you can even honestly recognise one simple and obvious difficulty homosexuality imposes on a society.

If you can't even acknowledge that, and are willing to argue away thousands of years of societal constructs rather than acknowledge a simple truth, I will have a hard time believing that you take any of the HARD questions seriously.

And yet, that is what seems to be the case. In the real world, most parents worry about their children's sexual awakening and activity. Your dismissal of this key concern show either an ignorance of the societal construct of family that should disqualify you from speaking as experts on the subject, or shows a propensity to ignore facts that are inconvenient to your chosen positions.

SPMM's "answers" to my questions are simply the best example of refusing to confront fact. Question: Is it OK for society to set up situations that are free from sexual attraction? Answer : that's a nice red sash you have tied around your waste, Charles. It is WRONG to pretend that such a task is possible in the world we live in
(i'm not sure why I'm wrapping my feces in a red sash, and I'd rather not know, but I'm pretty sure that was not intended to advance the debate).

Jonathan,

Your post from the other day is up. Folks, check out Jonathan's essay here:

http://www.equalityloudoun.org/?p=315

[I'll have a note on the main page about our spam filter]

I fear you may have tipped your hand, sir. (This may be the cause of our attendance challenges) ...So, my NOVA TownHall meetings have been devoid of this 'sexuality,' eh? I don't know what it is, but I promise you we will have our top people working on it.

To clarify my complaints about answers to my questions:

I thought we could agree that society had a right to set up organizations where sexual attraction was not an issue.

Having found the 'common ground' necessary to build a true debate, we then could discuss whether prohibiting a gay man from being a scoutmaster was a "reasonable restriction" to uphold the right of parents to send their child off without fear of sexual activity, and if prohibiting openly gay boys would also be a "reasonable restriction".

But if you think society is crazy to TRY to protect children, to provide some activities free from sexual co-attraction, then obviously you would see no reason for any restrictions.

I wasn't going to be basketball player, it wasn't my fault, it's just the way it is. I didn't spend my life trying to change the rules because it wasn't "fair", since I understand that for society to function, there will be limitations to the "fairness" provided to every individual. There were many things "denied" to me by society because of factors out of my control.

The answers to my questions suggest that my opponents refuse to acknowledge that concept. And without it, you can't ban anything.

SPC (charles):

we have so moved past the "homophobic" thing. see, you keep saying you want to establish the basics before moving on, then you state what you consider to be "facts" and complain when others call those 'facts' into question.

quick summary: you argue that groups which include gays can only have 2 people before creating sexual tension. the 'other side' replies, "so what?" Now I tend to agree with the "so what" camp. When does society separate sexes? public bathrooms, boy scouts, and, yes, slumber parties. that's about it, though. Now let's say you have a group of teenage boys who are all straight. You still have to chaperon them lest they should smoke the dope. They still need adult supervision. Now, throw in some gay kids, but keep the adult supervision, you create a situation that's more like the "real world" while still keeping the kids focused on earning their merit badges.

now I don't think I'm refusing to confront facts. (why did you put "answers" in quotes?) by saying that all groups have some sexual tension. Perhaps you're refusing to accept facts -- the facts of life! but if you're going to refuse to move beyond this 'sexual tension in groups' thing unless 'we' are willing to accept your premise, than I will say to you; yes, charles, you are correct. Groups of people which include gays are likely to have some amount of sexual tension. now, if you please, in your next post perhaps you can articulate your view on the amendment rather than providing another line-item critique of everyone else's posts, because I'm interested in knowing if your opinion is based on anything other than this 'sexual tension thesis' and a bunch questionable 'facts'

excuse the typo, the "red sash" around your waist was a reference to the junior anti-sex league from 1984 because I'm all into making obscure references and seeing if Joe picks up on them, and you remind me of a citizen of Oceania.

Damn. You got me, Puft Daddy. Touche.

Score one for you as you are one well-cultured son of a gun; I'll be back in the next round.

Charles. The common ground you are seeking would require an assumption that is too bizarre for me to even articulate properly. It's like discussing the impact on society of the fact that the oceans exist.

Since we all agree that the fact of the oceans' existence makes travel from one continent to another inconvenient, we shall now turn our attention to the task of how to engage in such travel without our feet ever leaving the earth.

You do know that there have always been, and always will be, gay people distributed throughout the population? It's just part of the objective situation, and every young person will be in groups of other people where someone is attracted to someone else, and they have to figure out what it means and where they fit into it all. They have to learn to control their sexual feelings, whatever those might be, and that sometimes they will like somebody else and be rejected. It's called growing up. They need guidance and supervision, but it's ridiculous beyond words to think that you can control that process through sex segregation and wishful thinking.

Please refrain from insulting my partner. As parents of a happy and well-adjusted child who has emerged unscathed into adulthood, we are well aware of and qualified to discuss these issues.

I can't believe you are still making an argument whose logical conclusion is that gay people can't be. Anywhere. Ever. Do you really not understand what it is that you are saying?

Charles,

To follow up on David's request that you not insult me, I saw your post as a misunderstanding, particularly this statement:

"And yet, that is what seems to be the case. In the real world, most parents worry about their children's sexual awakening and activity. Your dismissal of this key concern show either an ignorance of the societal construct of family that should disqualify you from speaking as experts on the subject, or shows a propensity to ignore facts that are inconvenient to your chosen positions."

What did I say that lead you to believe that I dismiss parental concerns about children's sexual awakening? I'll gladly clarify any language of mine that you don't understand.

Charles writes: "I thought we could agree that society had a right to set up organizations where sexual attraction was not an issue. Having found the 'common ground' necessary to build a true debate, we then could discuss whether prohibiting a gay man from being a scoutmaster was a "reasonable restriction" to uphold the right of parents to send their child off without fear of sexual activity, and if prohibiting openly gay boys would also be a "reasonable restriction"."

We are talking about the anti-gay Marriage Amendment, Charles, not the boy scouts. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject we are discussing. To claim that we must all agree to a stipulation that is not even related to the main topic of discussion in order for you to be able to debate us has to be the strangest idea of what a debate is that I have ever heard.

But, clearly, you are obsessed with this idea that society must create sexual-tension-free safety zones. So I have a couple of questions for you, unless you have decided to just take your marbles and go home:

1) Why is sexual tension suc a big problem for society? In other words, who cares?
2) Can you name a group that exists on earth that is completely free of sexual tension (besides Nova Townhall, of course)?
3) How do you propose to identify gays with certainty to keep them out of these sexual-tension-free groups?
4 Who on here has said you can't try to your hearts content to set up a sexual-tension-free group if you so desire, doomed to failure though that attempt may be?
5) Who here has said that you aren't free to try just as hard as you can to delay sexual awakening in your children for as long as you want?
6) What on earth does any of this have to do with gay marriage?

zimzo,

I said that the NoVA town hall meeting I attended had no sexual tension. That's a whole new thread.

This blog does have manufactured sexual tension becaue of the

VA4Marriage

and

One Man
...One Woman

ads.

Those ads scream "I want to fcuk."

TownHallies, have we uncovered your agenda? Are you trying to radically redefine George Burns?

"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."
George Burns

Heh, yes Jonathan you have uncovered our secret agenda...I guess I might as well 'fess up that the entire Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was in reality just a social networking thing. Sure, the soirees would have publishers, legislators, party hacks and talk radio hosts together - but the point was about getting a bunch of hot conservative chicks together in one place.

Joe,

I don't think you understood. The goal is [George Burns forgive me] to make the air dirty and sex clean, i.e. to have a "G" rated world. It's so ubiquitous that people can't see it, you know, like the forest through the trees.

p.s. By "hot conservative chick", do you mean Ann Coulter in a short black party dress?

Jonathan, I think the part of my brain responsible for processing symbolic language has gone to sleep for the moment, but thanks for making the effort to explain.

And yes, Ann Coulter would fit the bill as would any of a dozen blonde Fox News anchors (I can answer that one in my sleep).

is this thing on?

...where's charles? he announced his triumphal return only to run off again as soon as the rug was pulled out from under his argument? nice.

oh well, it's like the old arabic proverb:

"Fire will burn itself out if it does not find anything to burn."

I'll be back with the obligatory torches, the day job is a bit oppressive at the moment. Charles will likely be back as well.

This thread whithering.

If you can take reality, you may want to add this to your blogroll Joe.

http://www.publictheologian.com/blog

Actually, I've tried a couple of times to answer, but my laptop is getting worse and it always seems to hang before I get the posts saved.

And I can't sit in the chair at the desktop so I've been a little light on the posting.

Then I had to write my column on monday.

I just finished writing a wonderful response to everybody here, but lost it again.

But the short story of it all was, you have misinterpreted my intention, misunderstood where i was heading, and assumed too many facts.

I know homosexuality exists, I was merely pointing out it's incompatability with a societal structure which is very much WANTED by the population but which ignores homosexual existance.

I asked if the anti-amendment people even understood that homosexuality was problematic in that instance -- and the answers show that at some level you do, even if you seem to dismiss that as "self-evident" or meaningless.

The idea that I want to ban things because they are inconvenient is silly -- I know many people think they shouldn't be annoyed, inconvenienced, or have to put up with things, but I'm not one of those.

It is well-know that when two sides are diametrically opposed, conversation is useless if you cannot find common ground (which is the basis for a common "language" for the discussion). I was attempting to establish some form of common ground, but was unsuccessful, I'll leave it for history to decide why.

I won't pursue further at this time.

Johnathan, I don't know if it was you personally, but all the arguments against me appeared to have some degree of dismissiveness of my concern about a non-sexual atmosphere, maybe because they assumed I thought it was possible rather than simply desirable.

I'd say more, but the disk is making noises so it's about to go again.

If I do post again, it won't be until the new thread, and I'll try to confine myself to the same fruitless discussion everybody seems to want where we simply shout platitudes back and forth about gay marriage with no foundation of understanding to base our thoughts upon.

Which means I probably won't be around much, as that is a fruitless effort.

And as if to mock me, my disk locked up, and then for the first time ever came back to life just so it could post twice.

My argument about why we need to amend the constitution is an easier one.

We have a law, and the law is good. The law is constiutional under our current jurispudence.

However, there are many signs that activist judges are looking to misinterpret or re-write the constitutions of the states and the united states to push their own view of what is appropriate for society.

If those forces come to bear in Virginia, the law we passed that is supported and which is in effect now will be nullified, contrary to the will of the people and our historical interpretation of our counstitution.

The amendment is a way to ensure that this law is not nullified by the courts. If I was certain this could not happen, I would oppose the amendment. But I am almost certain it WILL happen.

Note: I did not say why the law is good, or why we should have the law. That wasn't the question -- the question was why we needed the amendment.

Thank you for listening.

Jonathan:

"..the Mission responsibility Through Investment Committee to move towards divesting from companies whose businesses participate in assisting the occupation of Palestinian territory by the Israelis."

I realize we are getting into a different topic here, but to address your suggestion I do not believe the "divest from Israel" movement is "reality-based" in any way, and in fact I think it is lunacy, and so odious that if I discovered any of our current blogroll members promoted it they would be removed posthaste.

Send me a link to a sensible, pro-gay marriage blog which does not fawn over the people who danced in the streets on 9-11-01, and I will be happy to include them in our blogroll.

Charles, thanks for coming back to wrap things up here. I'll have a new thread started as soon as the press of regular business subsides.

I was referring to

http://www.publictheologian.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/26/2057846.html

and

http://www.publictheologian.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/24/2052545.html

Sorry for not stating that clearly. The second link was for Charles who needs to work on his premise, and perhaps needs to clean up his own house first, please.

Jonathan,

Good links, thank you - I know you weren't linking to the pro-Palestinian post, my point is that post which was right under the other one disqualifies them from this blogroll. I'm extremely close-minded on that topic, I freely admit.

I appreciate the link to that site, though: I've bookmarked it.

Jonathan, if you think my house is dirty, maybe you could recommend someone to come clean it for me? I'm kind of laid up, and my wife is working, but I don't think the house is all that unkempt.

Now I've got to go finish cleaning the gerbil's house with my daughter. There's always something dirty somewhere.

If you need a hand let me know. It would be a mitzvah to come over to your place and help you out. It would also be good to let your daughter know that there are other perspectives out there in this great big world.

We have a television set, and my daughter attends public school.

You think she doesn't have a clue what is going on out in that "great big world"?

Fortunately, she is still at the stage where she says "ew, gross" when she sees two people kissing. Regardless of their sex.

If I can just keep that up until she's 21, I'll have done my job :-)

My wife is still hoping she can get the Queer Eye guys to give me a makeover.