Marriage Watch / Maggie Gallagher
What happened to the dynamite duo of Ted Olson and David Boies? After the first week of this trial the shine is off their allegedly invincible legal skills.
First loss, as Brian Brown wrote:
"Once again the Supreme Court has stepped in to protect marriage supporters from potential harassment and intimidation, this time by squashing the effort by Judge Vaughn Walker to break all the rules in order to televise this trial.
That's two strikes against Judge Walker, by the way; even the liberal Ninth Circuit couldn't stomach Judge Walker's earlier ruling allowing an unlimited fishing expedition into the private campaign strategy communications of Protect Marriage.
And it also makes the second time that Justice Anthony Kennedy has stepped forward to try to protect at least the process, to create a more even playing field for supporters of marriage. You will remember it was Justice Kennedy who granted an emergency stay that prevented the release of the names of thousands of Washingtonians who signed a petition overturning an "all-but-marriage" bill, after some gay-marriage advocates said they would try to replicate the effort in California to post these names on the internet.
Justice Kennedy joined four other justices to keep Judge Walker from hastily lifting the TV ban in order to televise the Prop 8 trial: "The balance of equities favors applicants. While applicants have demonstrated the threat of harm they face if the trial is broadcast, respondents have not alleged any harm if the trial is not broadcast."
Brian continues, "The trial, which gay marriage advocates had hoped would be some kind of cultural zeitgeist-shifting moment, is turning out to be a bit of a dud from their point of view. . . The hotshot team of Olson and Boies, misled by their own intellectual arrogance, which includes a profound lack of respect for the views of those Americans who disagree with them (including 7 million Californians who voted for Prop 8), appears off to a not-so-hot start. Harvard Prof. Nancy Cott says procreation--the creation of new life in the only kind of union where that child can reliably know and be known by, love and be loved by her own mom and dad--is no longer really a purpose of marriage (although she has to admit that it once was, at least sort of). Marriage is now about adults and our relationships. Once again, gay-marriage advocates are only reinforcing what we've been telling you: You can't support both the idea that "children need a mom and dad" and "gay marriage." Gay marriage ends one marriage tradition and irrevocably marks the beginning of using the law to reinforce a radically different idea about marriage. . . .
The obvious truth, repeated over and over again in the legal history of marriage in the U.S., is that the government thought marriage mattered because marital unions produce and protect children. They do this in two ways: First, by creating faithful, exclusive, enduring sexual unions that create the best context fo conceiving children. And second, by preventing (if the man and woman are faithful) the default harms of unregulated opposite-sex union: many fatherless children, many overburdened mothers, many men disconnected from family life.
This is the argument that Ted Olson told Newsweek "cannot be taken seriously." Good luck with that, Ted. Seven million Californians took it very seriously, and so do the majority of state courts that have considered it, several international human rights courts, and of course every major faith tradition.
On Christianity and marriage, San Francisco attorney Therese Stewart worked hard to establish that Catholics' and Baptists' views on marriage and sex are illegitimate bigotry. She actually had Yale Prof. George Chauncey read into the record official statements by the Vatican and by the Southern Baptist Convention. I had to laugh to keep from crying. This is the city that in an official resolution condemned the Catholic Church and urged a sitting Catholic archbishop to "defy" his own faith and side with the City Council's on gay adoption. Could gay-marriage advocates try any harder to fuel the perception that a victory for gay marriage requires the defeat of religious liberty, tolerance, and civility for Christianity and other traditional faiths?
I don't really think this is the way to win Justice Kennedy's heart. We'll see."
30 Comments
Religious liberty, tolerance, and civility would include the MCC and Unitarian Universalists who support families by marrying loving couples, some who have children together, regardless of their sex/gender.
By the way, the identities of witnesses in a trial are a matter of public record. Regardless of whether it is televised, they can't hide behind anonymity on either side. Telling that four out of six witnesses have withdrawn because they are ashamed to be associated with Prop 8 in public.
And in addition:
If fatherless children is a harm, wouldn't a child of two married men in twice as good a position as a child of heterosexual parents?
If overburdened mothers is a harm, wouldn't two mothers be able to share the burden?
Wouldn't allowing men (or women) who love each other to marry reconnect them to family life?
Think about it!
Once again, gay-marriage advocates are only reinforcing what we’ve been telling you: You can’t support both the idea that “children need a mom and dad” and “gay marriage.”
So true. Changing marriage means changing family. That's why so many people are instinctively against it.
Same-sex couples want to join in the tradition of marriage - not end it. They uphold the ideals of fidelity, love, respect, and family. Same-sex marriage does not change the institution, it reinforces it.
What the SSM campaign means is that mothers are irrelevant unless the child is raised by double-moms.
And that fathers are irrelevant unless the child is raised by double-dads.
They oppose the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood because where children are involved, the one-sexed scenario segregates fatherhood and motherhood. SSMers try to make a pro-gay virtue from this profound flaw.
MCC and Unitarian Universalists practice their rituals unmolested by the marriage law and the CA marriage amendment.
The demand that Government intervene to impose the MCC and Unitarian Universalist beliefs on all of society is a peculair kind of sectarianism built on the mistaken assumption that gay identity politics must trump religious liberty and freedom of conscience and civility. That sectarianism begins with the axiomatic claim that the core meaning of marriage (in its secular form no less) is hateful and bigoted. None of that is in accord with civility much less with justice.
Marriage is about property, kinship and inheritance. The marriage license is an application for State and Federal benefits granted a specific class of people. All arguments about love, romance, reproduction, religious dogma and family values are PERSONAL BAGGAGE and cultural ignorance of the legal reasons for marriage.
Who gets to decide the meaning of marriage? You? Me? 9 judges? or We The People?
And thank you Kevin, for the clarification on YOUR IDEA of "marriage".
I suggest you find a good estate planner, not a wedding.
Marty - "We the people" said that inter-racial marriage was illegal. "We the people" said that African-Americans counted as onlly 3/5 of a white man. "We the people" have been idiots before, and will not doubt do it again.
However, it behooves "we the people" to follow the law: in this case, California's constitution requires a 2/3 vote to implement a change to the consititution. Prop 8 got 53%, not the 66.67% required under the law.
"We the people" need to do the math. Prop 8 doesn't add up.
It is constitutional to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage -- that's one of the clarifying purposes of licensing.
And the special status accorded marriage arises from the societal signifiance, not the private interest, of what differentiates marriage from the other stuff.
Funny, that societal interestis supposed to be decisive, according to SSMers, but they haven't come up with anything to justify the special status they demand for one-sexed arrangements.
I second Marty's comment @ January 17, 2010 at 6:46 pm.
Marty which or whose idea of marriage should be embedded in civil marriage law? Due process and equal protection require that this "idea" not be forced on to another (same sex couples). Marty can go home at night and still have freedom to view his marriage any way he wants. Marty needs to allow others the same freedom he takes for granted. Just like Marty can choose his religion, he should extend that freedom to marriage views.
"I don’t really think this is the way to win Justice Kennedy’s heart. We’ll see."
This really shows how little idea you have of how fair law and courts work. Winning Kennedy's "heart" is not an issue nor should it be despite what you think. You could also say you want him to exhibit "empathy", an attribute the right so vehemently criticized when Sotomayor was nominated. Once again, the right wants to have it both ways especially when they feel it works to their advantage. If Kennedy has any use as a judge at all, the should vote according to the law not his personal or religious view.
Actually you guys really fell for it didnt you. Listen up - the LGBT community did not want to have it publicized on TV at all. Bois and olsen beat you at your subversive game. I am giving away our game plan. Truth be known we set you all up to fight to have it out of press. you would not have believed us if we had not blogged about it and fought as if we wanted it. But now your stupid lawyers have erased an opportunity for a good appeal. Too bad. But yeah it worked for us. You see once the trial is over there is going to be a blow by blow reanctment using transcripts and not only will you all look as bad as you feared (hence not wanting the cameras in) but you will also be exposed for the cowards that you are... hiding your hate behind a bible will land you where you belong/.
Marty Marty Marty How about we ban divorce - the popular voice- we the people - In fact wait the proposition ban divorce is about to happen. Just think we the people do not want anyone to be allowed to divorce. we want you strapped to those inheritance, tax, property laws like 'cement to brick. You want it you got it. after all what is divorce about - its about getting rid og your legal obligations.
Marriage should remain between one man and one woman. A child needs one father and one mother. Gays want what straight couples have yet gays rebel against what straight couples don't rebel against. Plus, a hetero couple doesn't need a third party to make a child like gay couples do so how can gays call themselves equal to heteros. Comparing sexual activity to racial identity is just plain wrong and deceptive. I'm a heteroseparatist; I don't hate gays I just don't believe that a person can be born gay and I know people who have gone from being gay to being straight.
Maggie asks, "Could gay-marriage advocates try any harder to fuel the perception that a victory for gay marriage requires the defeat of religious liberty, tolerance, and civility for Christianity and other traditional faiths?"
Since marriage equality for Gay couples will have precisely ZERO effect on "religious liberty, tolerance, and civility for Christianity and other traditional faiths," Ms. Gallagher's comment amounts to empty rhetoric. Why? HERE'S why:
1: Houses of worship (whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever) have never been forced to marry anyone they didn't want to marry. Mosques have never been forced to perform marriage ceremonies for Jewish couples, Catholic cathedrals have never been forced to perform marriage ceremonies for Atheist couples, etc.
2: The legal documentation of marriage doesn't come from the church but from government, usually at the state or county level. The only thing a church can provide is a ceremony, but the only thing a couple really NEEDS, legally, is a marriage license. They can fly out to Las Vegas and get that from an Elvis impersonator, and no one will be the wiser.
3: Maggie talks about "civility for Christianity" as if to assume that ALL Christians and ALL churches are united in lockstep against marriage equality for Gay couples. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are plenty of houses of worship within ALL faiths which are ready and willing to provide ceremonies for Gay couples; whether they are called "holy unions" or "blessings" or "weddings" is irrelevant.
4: The various "traditional faiths" that Maggie allies herself with will continue to be free to preach their vitriol against Gay individuals and couples, and more power to them I say, since it only illustrates their own prejudices and says nothing about the worth of Gay Americans. I don't care if Pat Robertson warns that God will smite Orlando with a meteor because of "Gay Day" at Disneyworld, or if God somehow inflicted a devastating earthquake on Haiti because of some weird claims about "pacts with the Devil." Who cares? I don't. But then again, it's not Christianity that provides all the legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities of marriage, but rather GOVERNMENT.
mantronikk ---
I would like to pose a simple question to you concerning homosexuality being a choice versus it being innate in some humans.
Why would someone choose to be gay if they knew they would have to endure a life where more than half of the world believes they are an abomination or a sinners? Why would they subject themselves to hate-fueled violence purely based upon their sexual orientation? Why would they choose a lifestyle where their dating pool is essentially cut to 10% or even less?
What are the inherent up-sides of being gay? I don't really see any obvious ones.
People aren't choosing to be gay just to spite religion and rebel. They are gay because it is not a choice. If everyone had the choice they would simply be heterosexual.
In terms of children needing one father and one mother, all the peer-reviewed scientific journal articles out there disagree with that statement. Personally, I believe that the world would be a great place where every child had a mother and a father but, this is simply an idealistic world that will never be achieved. There are tons of children out there growing up with just a single parent, roughly half of heterosexual marriages end in divorce. This ideal simply isn't working.
The debate can better be framed as a choice between one parent or two parents. As the scientific research shows, a child is much better off with two parents, whether they be same or opposite sex, as opposed to just having a single parent of a either sex.
To combat your point of "Plus, a hetero couple doesn’t need a third party to make a child like gay couples do so how can gays call themselves equal to heteros", what about heterosexual couples who cannot procreate on their own? Should couples who are too old, sterile, or just plain not interested in children be forbidden from marrying? There are tons of heterosexual couples out there who cannot conceive without scientific assistance or without the help of a third party (surrogate mothers, egg or sperm donor). Are these couples also not equal in your mind and just as undeserving of marriage as homosexual couples?
Also, could you clarify what you mean by "Gays want what straight couples have yet gays rebel against what straight couples don’t rebel against"?
Hughman, it is true that this case is a question of law, not theatrics, not sentimentalism, however, the legal strategy pursued by Olson's team is clearly emtoive rather than based on cold hard reasoning.
In other words, Maggie's remark just goes with the flow of anti-8 testimony and tweaks Olson's nose.
Olson is going for 'the heart' -- and gaming for a subjective intervention by individual judges who'd inject their personal feelings and bias into the case -- and so Olson is hoping to disguise the anti-8 side's weakness in terms of the question of law.
So to paraphrase your own remark: This really shows how little Olson's strategy has in common with how fair law and courts work. Winning Kennedy’s “heart” is not an issue nor should it be the basis of a courtroom strategy on a constitutional matter.
Melanie Nathan, thanks for the inside scoop. Oye.
Chuck Anziulewicz, on that list you just proferred you'd stake the credibility of your objection to Maggie's remark?
Really.
Item 1 is a straw man. The SSM side is very fond of manufacturing straw man arguments.
Item 2 is irrelevant. The license is issued by society (via government) for a type of relationship. The core meaning of that type of relationship, the union of husband and wife, is extrinsic to the type of relationship that SSMers keep emphasizing. That core is the specia reason for the special status that is accorded the union of husband and wife -- hence the clarifying role of a licensing scheme.
3. Your overall point is that marital status is not simply a theological issue. But then you point to the rites that some few religious bodies provide in accomodation of unions that are expressly not marital within their theologies. So you do look to press sectarianism where your overall point is about pluralism. Please reconcile.
4. That's just more of the same. You are not hitting the target. Affirmation of the man-woman basis of marriage is not vitriolic nor is it bigotry against the homosexual person. The issue is marriage -- not gaycentric identity politics, nor any other form of identity politics.
The marriage law is neutral regarding all that you list, yet you demand the government to be biased toward a peculair sectarianism that is gaycentric.
Casey, your questions are answered at http://www.queerbychoice.com
LOTS of people choose their sexuality, for a myriad of reasons.
Marty, you finally got me, that information is peer reviewed and supported by most every major main stream organization in the US. Thanks for finally providing factual data that people can take to the bank!
To: J R Boyer (comment #10)
"We the People" counted not blacks, but SLAVES as 3/5 of a person for census purposes so that slave owning states would not have an advantage on representation in the House of Representatives. if we had counted slaves as whole persons, then we would still have slavery. Try learning history before criticizing it. The 3?5 provision was put there with the intent to eventually end slavery, not to discrminate african americans. african americans in general were counted as normal people. As for California, do you even have an opinion, or do you just follow whatever it is the homosexual leaders tell you? An amendment requires only 51% to be valid. The entire purpose of the trial was to argue that it requires 2/3 because the wanted to call it a provision. Not even the judges who creted gay mariage in California in the first place agreed to this. The numbers do add up, you just dont like what they add up to. One more thing, just because people have made mistakes in the past, doesn't mean that maintaning the defintion of marriage as a man and a woman is a mistake. There are far more reasons to cliam that it is not than there are to claim that it is. Go learn the law and the Consitution before using them in your argument.
Marty, the content of that website admits that there is a genetic and biological element for some homosexuals.
Also, as a gay man, I know none of the following ever went through my head:
" * It may seem silly to reject perfectly good people just because of the shape of their sex organs.
* It may be easier to relate to members of our own gender on an understanding, nonexploitative level.
* If we don't believe queerness is genetic and we also don't see anything immoral about choosing it, then limiting ourselves to loving only members of the opposite gender just from pure fear of social condemnation might make us feel like cowards.
* We may be looking for a sense of purpose in life, and reclaiming the right of all people to love and make love to members of our own gender may provide us with a sense of purpose.
* We may admire the queer community and want to be a part of it.
* We may be rebelling against the sexually repressive culture.
* If like most non-queers we find that the idea of being called queer scares us, we may recognize that the only way to overcome any fear is to face it and do what scares us most—to become queer.
"
To me, these reasons seems preposterous and most of them point to an orientation of bisexuality, not homosexuality. What this person is actually saying is that people are willing to give their true feelings and attractions for some social and societal pressures? I understand that possibly other people may choose to be gay but, this clearly doesn't apply to all people even as evidenced by the site you linked. I appreciate you accurately answering my question and I realize that I got on a bit of a tangent here that was unrelated to my question and your answer.
Personally, when I figured out I was gay, if I was told there was a way to make myself heterosexual without the use of damaging psychology (all conversion therapy is not supported by the major psychological organizations), I would have done so in an instant. I only came to accept myself when logic and reason showed me that there is nothing wrong with being gay.
Johnathan - Can you link me to where it says that this information is "peer reviewed and supported by most every major main stream organization in the US." If it were to be peer-reviewed or have any scientific validity, it would likely be in a scientific journal, not on a website with a pink and rainbow color scheme.
Casey, regarding "all the peer-reviewed" research on children and family structure, you are exagerating, or misunderstanding, the body of research that exists. It does not say what you think (or want) it to say.
Same-sex sexual attraction is not one and the same thing as gay identity.
Gay identity politics is wont to conflate the two.
Same-sex sexual attraction may or may not be inborn. Claims that it science indicates that it is inborn are greatly overstated. No matter. It is behavior that is at issue anyway, not subjective feelings or internal urges.
Besides, no socio-political identity is inborn. Gay identity is no exception.
Also, the talk of purity in gayness is very like the talk of purity in racialist identity politics. SSMers will even denounced as "shams" the mixing of "sexual orientations" in marriages.
The social institution of marriage does not organize society by sexual orienation, contrary to the common lines of thinking among SSM supporters.
Marriage is a foundational social institution that arises from the two-sexed nature of humankind, the opposite-sexed nature of human procreation, and the both-sexed nature of human community. SSM -- whatever its merits and demerits -- is an idea that is extrinsic to the essentials of marriage. Marriage, as a type of relationship, is different because it has a two-sexed sexual basis; that basis is of great societal significance; and at its core marriage provides for responsible procreation COMBINED with sex integration.
Homosexuality -- inborn or not -- is irrelevant to the meaning of marriage. It just is not germane.
But, apparently, it is of the utmost importance to the type of relationship that SSMers emphasize. Or, rather, gay identity politics is central to the demand that society merger a subset of nonmarriage with marriage. No other justification is provided. And, again, in this way the SSM argumentation's gaycentric filter is closely analogous with the racialist identity politics of the old, and repudiated, white supremicist filter.
Thanks Casey. I'll agree that some choose, some lean, some are coerced, and some -- if they ever had any choice at all -- have absolutely no recollection of doing so. Which is not quite the same as saying they didn't choose. I distinctly remember making my choice.
There's really no credible scientific evidence that homosexuality is inborn, and there is certainly no test you can give to a baby or a corpse to prove it is biological in origin. On the other hand, we have real live people who have changed.
fact the highest score on the U.S. exam to be a federal prison gaurd is held by a serial killer which only points towards the fact that intelligence does not have anything to do with morality if so he would be the warden.
the fact that some gays are intelligent does not make what they do right, instead of following the obvious these individuals choose the prepostorous idea of a man born in a womans body instead of accepting mental illness exists when all physical aspects are without flaw even when it can be scientifically shown to be a mental illness.
there are children who are being molested in some way that will never enjoy or experience normal sexual relation.... accept a deviation for what it is not embrace it as the norm
what can be said of the long term obvious societal effect of SSM, will the people commit self destruction as this arrangement is one of extermination, that is to say when scientist choose to eliminate or control an animal the focus is immediately placed upon the reproductive capabilities thru various methods ex. tricking one insect to mate incorrectly thus nuetralizing reproduction allowing the exterminator to kill the active population this can be a precurser towards such a thing.
If the gay community truly cared about mankind they would set their selfish wants aside and see the true result of such an act on mankind or the children of the future verily the world shall respond in fashion