The New Hampshire chapter of National Organization for Marriage launched a brutal ad campaign on Friday, targeting 87 Republican state representatives who voted against the recent bill to repeal the state’s law allowing same-sex marriage.
The ad accuses the legislators of misrepresenting their support for traditional marriage to voters when running for office, points out that every Republican presidential candidate opposes same-sex marriage, and singles out Manchester Rep. Michael Ball for a statement he made that the ad says “mocked the very institution of marriage that God himself authored.”
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“Put this dog (traditional marriage) down like it deserves to be.”
Rep. Michael Ball, R-Manchester
Wow.
Fail. The first comment on the article is Mike Ball calling NOM on their lying misquote.
Yeah you're right, Barb, its a jawdropping quote. Only its not at all what the man said.
dn,
Could you please supply clarification; as opposed to the patent pending "no it isn't" response marriage corruption supporters are infamous for. I would seriously prefer to see the context in which the quote was intended in order to make an informed opinion one way or the other.
“Always be right; you will justify the few and amaze the many” Mark Twain
But of course, Randy - more than happy to oblige. Ball makes it clear that the dog he was referring to was the bill.
From Mike Ball:
The people at NOM who created this ad apparently couldn’t be bothered to hire a fact checker which would have prevented the misleading quote attributed to me. I would venture a guess that fact checkers are a lot cheaper than erroneous, full page, newspaper ads. The comment NOM attributed to me was made in reference to House Bill 437, a poorly written, ill conceived, hateful piece of segregationist tripe that would make a Klansman blush. I DO NOT think there is anything wrong with the institution of traditional marriage. In fact, I have been in one for the past 25 years with my high school sweetheart. I DO believe, however, that HB 437 is a dog of a bill that deserved to be put out of its misery. When HB 437, stripped of all of its amendments, was revealed to the members of the House, they overwhelmingly turned their backs on it and killed it on the spot. Many members who are adamantly opposed to gay people being allowed to marry couldn’t bring themselves to support this bill because even they recognized that it stripped our gay citizens of both the right to marry AND the right to have a civil union. It left them with nothing at all and the huge numbers of Republicans were revolted by this basic unfairness toward our fellow citizens. If the folks at NOM had spent 5 minutes reviewing the speech I made on the House floor, they would have known this. Since they apparently have no Sherlock Holmes types working at NOM, I’ll make it easy on them. Go here: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/media/live_media.htm and click on “Afternoon Video” for the 3/21/12 session and fast forward the video to about the 3:26 mark. Watch for yourself and then decide if NOM has any distant acquaintance with the truth.
Get the 'dogs' out. Or train them a new trick, that of valor.
We need good men in leadership positions. Good men and women. For its precisely men and women that makes up the human species. And marriage is the name given to the most reduced form of the living and conscious human-species. Take either one out of the equation (man or woman), and you know longer have marriage, nor the human-species. And no longer the symbol that it represents, that is graciously offered to our orphans when possible; as a vision of where it is that they come from.
And what they as well can one day become, the ONE-human-specie , i.e. married!
There's nothing wrong with calling a dog by its name, when what you are pointing out is indeed a dog, and not a cat. Man-man is not marriage. Give your dog a name!
Can we please start calling out those people who use such phrases as "against gay people marrying" or "denying same-sex couples the right to get married"?
No one is denying anyone the opportunity to get married. EVERYONE has the right to get married. It is impossible for same-sex couples to get married by definition.
Those phrases should be replaced with phrases such as "Believe that marriage should remain defined as the lifetime union of a man and a woman" or "Believe that marriage should not be changed to pacify same-sex couples."
To Mike Ball,
Thank you for clarifying.
And you are right.
WE WANT ANSWERS!!!
You are correct, Resist. There are no orientation requirements for marriage. It is just easier to say "allow gay people to marry" than it is to say "let gay people choose their spouses in the same way heterosexual people do". It's like downloading an "app" instead of an "application".
Looks like NOM went for the brass ring on this go due to their belief that they could pull the same thing marriage corruption supporters pull when they have the super majority; attach riders that go above and beyond.
I understand NOM's motivation to remove the Trojan horse, known as civil unions, from the field of battle, but riders are not the way to go about it.
Case in point:
Obamacare
Michael C,
Perverts do not choose their partners the same way right minded folks do. Right minded folks normally consider their partners fitness to conceive prior to; to the extent that many a divorce was due to the fact that one participant could not procreate.
Marriage corruption supporters never consider procreation in their equation because they know right out of the gate that it is impossible for same-gendered companions to procreate within the constructs of their relationship.
Well, I took the time and watched the video of Rep. Michael Ball's speech.
He referred to the bill as a "segregation bill" and likened support of traditional marriage to the racial segregation of his grandfather's age.
Here is the actual bill in question:
http://www.nhliberty.org/bills/view/2012/HB437
Ball is complaining that he was accurately represented in the NOM Ad.
Sure, he said "this bill" but he had clearly voiced his opposition to the very thing that the bill was intended to restore and affirm -- the marriage law ante the revisions that the SSM advocates has pushed in 2010.
There is no other way for him to spin his labeling this restoration and affirmation as "the segregation bill". There is no nuance there. He let the mask slip and now he wants to try to put it back on and pretend that he was in favor of what he vehemently opposed.
House Bill 437 included preliminary legislative notes that affirmed the societal significance of marriage and which clearly stated the intention to restore what the SSM legislation had abolished from the laws of New Hampshire.
Here is a link to House Bill 437.
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/HB0437.html
At the bottom of the text is a list of the SSM package of revisions that were up for repeal.
NOM did not overstate in the Ad. But Ball has indulged in hyper emotional rantings -- in response to the ad but also earlier on the floor of the legislature where the quote was taken from.
_ _ _ _
1. When that SSM revisionist package was pushed through, the SSMers voted to repeal civil union. They did that all on their own. That was part and parcel of their revisions.
If they wanted to restore civil union, that was up to them to work out in a new bill for that purpose. They could have introduced afterward if they thought it compatable with the restoration of marriage in the law.
House Bill 437 dealt with the revisions of the SSM legislation. That was necessary and not superfluous, contrary to Ball's protestations.
2. Given Ball's disingenuous remarks posted above, readers will note that the civil union provisions were clearly SSM-related and not standalones: including a provision that was added by the SSM advocates in 2010 to expressly equate civil union with marriage [457-A] and another provision added to expressly converted civil union to SSM [457:46].
Upshot: These provisions would make no sense prior to the SSM revision package; and these provisions would make no sense after the restoration of marriage.
Ball's whining is ridiculous and he has embarrassed himself.
In fact, it is the SSM advocates whose misuse of marriage law is analogous to the misuse of marriage law by the racist segregationists.
Both the SSMers and the racists asserted the supremacy of identity politics and used marriage to serve that assertion.
_ _ _ _
See:
[457-A]
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XLIII/457-A/457-A-mrg.htm
[457:45]
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XLIII/457/457-45.htm
[457:46]
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XLIII/457/457-46.htm
"There is no other way for him to spin his labeling this restoration and affirmation as "the segregation bill". There is no nuance there. He let the mask slip and now he wants to try to put it back on and pretend that he was in favor of what he vehemently opposed."
Thank you, Chairm.
I thought the very same when I heard Rep. Ball's speech. He is trying to weasel out of his own words.
Chairm
I also agree with you on another important point: that Rep. Ball was constructing a straw-man in his defense.
There was nothing in that proposed bill that forbade Civil Unions. Nothing.
Michael C -
You previous post exemplifies the misunderstanding of homosexuals regarding male-female couples. Male-female couples are inherently different from same-sex couples. The choice of spouse for heterosexuals is based on the normal Darwinian notion of survival of the species: finding an individual with whom to reproduce that is going to result in healthy offspring. Attraction manifests itself in many ways, be it sexual lust or some deeper connection, but the underlying reason for the attraction is based on prospective procreation.
And this is the reason that some refer to homosexuals as "disordered;" that is, if you're not attracted to a partner with who you are capable of reproducing, then you are outside of the regular order of things. What underlying reason might there be for people of the same-sex to be attracted to one another that would contribute to the survival of the species? Whatever that reason might be, it is distinctly different from the reason underlying heterosexual attraction. As such, there is no reason to treat same-sex couples the same as heterosexual couples.
AM,
It is worth reiterating.
Rep Mike Ball opposed the restoration of marriage because he claimed it to be "ill-conceived" and "hateful" and, as you noted, "segregationist tripe". That is what he said in his clarification, as quoted above in dn's comment.
Also, in his attempt to correct the NOM ad, he said that House Bill 437 "stripped our gay citizens of both the right to marry AND the right to have a civil union. It left them with nothing at all."
The SSM advocates had repealed civil union when they pushed through their SSM revision package in 2010.
The revisionists created the problem that Ball has now tried to blame on others.
This use of civil union is the next step of the Trojan Horse ploy. The civil union provisions I mentioned in my previous comment are used as poison pills to setup an emotional blockade to restoration of marriage in the state's laws. Again, that is the doing of the SSM advocates and Ball would rather blame that on others.
The lesson for anyone watching this who might be tempted to try to 'compromise' with civil union is to ask yourself if civil union is truly a reasonable measure in light of what has gone on in New Hampshire.
Better to use provision for designated beneficiaries which does not depend on touching marriage law, at all, and which does not setup a relationship status that SSMers can use to equate, falsely, with marriage, nor to convert, absurdly, to marriage.
Also, designated benificiaries is a provision that has the merit of being an actual solution to the actual problems of vulnerable families outside of marriage. And such provision does not depend on the elevation of gay identity politics; it can be sustained without the abusive and corruptive influence of the SSM campaign on the principles of good lawmaking.
So it fits the need and it co-exists quite well with marriage.
Politically it also puts the complaints of SSMers in stark contrast with the actual need and the basics of good lawmaking. When they oppose the better solution and insist on favoritism for the gay identity group, as Mike Ball does, they inform their fellow citizens of their priorities -- or, more charitably, of their misplaced emotions. It would also have the merit of warning citizens of the poison pills that the Trojan Horse carries with it.
Chairm you sicken me
Oh look I'm not blocked now! I don't feel like retyping my responses to your arguments and leave it at "you sicken me."
dn, thank you for quoting Rep Ball to the effect that he has now refuted his own claim against the NOM ad. Thank you also for pointing out that Rep Ball made complained about the repeal of civil union -- something that the SSM advocates managed themselves. You are doinig good word, dn. Hope you will feel better soon.
Hi Resist. I am often disheartened when I visit this website. While reading the articles and comments here I feel as though so many people do not think that gay people contribute positively to our society in the same way that our straight brothers and sisters do. Is this the issue that will forever keep us at odds?
Michael C -
I don't think anyone here believes that gay people do not contribute positively to society.
But we're talking here about couples, not individuals; and the issue is not whether same-sex couples contribute to society in the in the same way that male-female couples do, . The issue is whether same-sex couples are the same as male-female couples such that they should be treated identically. And the answer is "no," they are not the same because male-female couples can inherently procreate and same-sex couples can not. This difference and how it is treated has an enormous impact on society.
Marriage is the institution that addresses the likelihood of procreation between male-female couples and attempts to assure that moms and dads take responsibility for their offspring and that children have their moms and dads to raise them. Marriage is about uniting moms and dads and their offspring; that purpose cannot be served with same-sex couples. From a societal/gov't perspective, same-sex couples are irrelevant to marriage's purpose.
Does that make same-sex couples inferior? No, it just acknowledges that they are different from male-female couples. If we're at odds, it's because homosexuals refuse to acknowledge that difference, and they refuse to acknowledge the importance of parents to their offspring, the importance of which all of civilization has recognized for thousands of years. It's a strange distortion of reality to make themselves believe they are the same.
Michael C,
it's perfectly possible for "gay people" to contribute positively to society.However,their choice to identify as "gay" leads them into forms of sexual relationship that are harmful to society,independently of whatever good they are doing in their lives.If they stop trying to rationalize indulgence of their same-sex attraction,it can only be good for them and those around them.