On Gay Marriage, Unalienable Rights, and the Founders' Original Intent

Well, I for one HOPE TO GOD we will look back on gay rights as something we might have accepted far more readily than we seem to be doing. The key concerns in the Declaration were indeed "inalienable rights", which, to me mean--anyone OUTSIDE my body is an alien and can only deal with it with my permission--and cannot EVER make decisions on behalf of my inner being.

You can suggest; you can try to pursuade, and I have been known to be seduced by shrimp in coconut milk, but no one can DECIDE for me.

I think Jefferson et al did understand this. After all, they too had to work hard to remove the shackles of imperialistic thinking from their daily lives.

And so, we continue the fight...Off to the White House to cover the worldcantwait group set up there.

I think the Founders might have approved of the Platform of the Backbone Campaign, in which Civil Unions are part of Civil Rights.

Civil Rights
-------------------------------------------------

Position: America must provide equal opportunity to all, and strongly affirm the separation of Church and State as a cornerstone of our democracy. This requires protection against discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, physical ability, sexual orientation, and gender identification. We call on the Democratic Party to:

1. Strongly support Affirmative Action as a way of helping to ensure that all individuals in our society have an equal opportunity to succeed.

2. Guarantee women's agency for their own bodies by repealing the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," and the partial-birth abortion bill, and providing for universal access to safe, legal abortion, birth control, and sex education.

3. Amend the Americans with Disability Act to ensure the coverage that was intended, prior to restrictive rulings.

4. Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

5. Legislate Equal Pay for Equal Work.

6. Prohibit public funding of faith-based charities and schools.

7. Repeal state and federal "Defense of Marriage" Acts.

8. Provide "civil unions" for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Until the establishment of civil union as the convention for state recognition of all couples, and to the extent that the possession of a "marriage" or a marriage license is synonymous with advantage, no couple should be denied access to license for marriage or recognition of their marital status, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identification. We firmly oppose any Constitutional Amendment denying the right of same-sex marriage.

Get dat Froggie Marchin

http://www.tidmus.com/blog/images/frog_march_final.jpg

former JK blogger has a diary at Kos about it today

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/16/10366/985

Ellis, has tried to actively imagine himself into the minds of the Founding Fathers and has come up with an answer he finds satisfactory based on his logical appeal to authority. He errs in his presumption.

Fact is, homosexuality was not accepted in colonial America, and it was a punishable offense in those days. Homosexuality was also something about which hardly anyone ever talked or wrote, except a few preachers. It may have been the days of the Enlightenment, but America has always had the talons of the religious fanatics at her throat, and open-mindedness about homosexuality has never been popular among those with closed minds who do not understand biology and who actively suppress scientific facts. Sexual orientation is not a choice; homosexuals are born homosexual, just as heterosexuals are born heterosexual - our sexuality is hard-wired in our brains from conception!!! Scientists know that, even if religious fanatics can't accept reality.

Ellis has made the same error as the so-called religious leaders in America. As a 21st century person, he's tried to imagine himself into the minds of 18th century American men, and then Ellis came up with a 21st century answer by a convoluted thought process. Haven't we had enough of that kind of erroneous thinking from religious fanatics who start out sentences with such outrageous things as "I think God would..." or "I think Jesus would...". That presumes too much, especially since they only interpret things written by men 1900 to 3000 years ago with a convoluted thinking process that arrives at a conclusion they want it to come to in the 21st century.... People who existed centuries ago are not around to ask questions of, so it's pretty well pointless to say "I think he would say/do..." regarding topics they never wrote about - and why would they have had to write about things that were not issues during their own lifetimes? We don't know what any of them would think or say or do in the 21st century since they're not here to tell us the answers to the questions.

Ellis has presumed an interpretation based on a 21st century "problem" and arrived at a conclusion he wanted to by imagining himself into the minds of 18th century men... and came up with a conclusion an 18th century man would likely never have had - ever - if, indeed, an 18th century Founding Father ever thought about it at all. And, really, homosexual marriage is only an "issue" because of insurance companies and beneficiary clauses and modern hosptial rules and regulations - otherwise it wouldn't be discussed at all.... Why didn't Ellis just simply write that he had come up with a few opinions of his own? That would have made far more sense than trying to say he thinks the Founding Fathers would have agreed with his opinion (when, in fact, the Founding Fathers likely would not have agreed one bit with Ellis' opinion). Why did Ellis feel it necessary to appeal to authority to get the answers he wanted anyway??? Our 'unalienable rights' are 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' - but that does not mean we are guaranteed happiness or a perfect life. All this chatter about homosexual unions has more to do with money, and to satisfy insurance companies and hospital rules and regs - it doesn't have one damned thing to do with morality or religion, but it has everything to do with money and benefits....

All marriages are 'civil' unions because they are legal contracts for two people to live together - remember, one signs the contract before witnesses just after the ceremony of vows spoken.... If marriage were not a legal contract, there would be no need to go through the court system to get a divorce.... Ellis needs to learn the origins and history of marriage contracts since the beginning of recorded history while he's at it.....

Not only does Harriet Miers say Bush is "the most brilliant man I've ever met," but now they've dragged Condi Rice (who seems to be all over the globe at once) onto Fox, where she says Miers has a "probing intellect."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12918910.htm

According to Bill Bryson's book about America, the Puritan weren't all that pure.

There are still Puritans today, even with a curriculum. http://www.puritans.net

& here are a bunch of Puritan sermons, since it's Sunday in America (home of the Christian Taleban) and time to talk about religion again.

http://www.puritansermons.com/aboutprt.htm

An example of contemporary prudery, priggism and puritanism:

US distributors of the film Merchant of Venice, which premiered in London this week, have asked the director to cut out a background fresco by a Venetian old master so it is fit for American television viewers…

According to [director Michael] Radford, there was “a very curious request which said ‘Could you please paint-box out the wallpaper?’. I said wallpaper, what wallpaper? This is the 16th century, people didn’t have wall-paper.”
When he examined the scenes, he realised the letter was referring to frescoes by Paolo Veronese, the acclaimed Venetian 16th-century artist, which, when examined closely, showed a naked cupid.

“A billion dollars worth of Veronese great master’s frescoes they want paint-boxed out because of this cupid’s willy. It is absolutely absurd,” he said.

An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.

A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."
…
Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.
…
When asked about Tennessee Williams' southern classic "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Allen said the play probably couldn't be performed by university theater groups.

Allen said no state funds should be used to pay for materials that foster homosexuality. He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like "Heather has Two Mommies," it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisted."

The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/prigs_prudes_puritans_and_prissy_pissants/

Nonny, I can't agree with you here at all.

To suggest that the hostility to gay marriage is just about money is to ignore the obvious evidence we see around us. The people in Ohio and Kansas who recently voted to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions were not worried about money and benefits. They were obsessed with a sense of propriety, and imagined normalcy, being lost if, God forbid, people of the same sex actually had the same rights as they did.

I think Ellis' point is brilliant. The Framers were committed to the embrace of modernity - and if they knew then what we know today about the genetic underpinnings of homosexuality, there is no question in my mind that they would support same sex unions of some type. It doesn’t matter what they thought then, because they didn’t know what we know now.

Second, appeals to authority may rub some people the wrong way, but some of us believe that when humanity disregards such safeguards, it inevitably end up in scenarios like the French Revolution or Chinese Cultural Revolution - where an intelligentsia rules, and everything is new, and everything is awful. Appeals to authority may be patriarchal, but not everything about patriarchy is bad. And besides, we’re talking about Constitutional Law here – which is impossible without reference to the authority of a guiding document, and some means of interpreting that document within the context of the modern world.

1 in 9 high schoolers are gay, on average, and the suicide attempt rate is triple that of other teens. Abstinence-only sex education has been ineffective in lowering teen pregnancy and must be confusing to gay teens as they're told to wait til marriage but are not allowed to marry.

I just finished reading US News & World Reports cover story on teen sex education, then discussed it in depth with my son. He asked if I'd ever seen a suburban fundie house without cable on constantly and said that they have abstinence commercials sandwiched right in between "slutty" shows and he bets kids will go with the tv show behavior, not the ads. He compared it to the "smoking prevention" ads by Phillip Morris, which he considers a farce. The sex education and drug education he got 6 or so years ago is very different from what kids are receiving now. It was actually reality-based and biologically-based.

I think we've really stepped backward with this anti-biology approach. Now I see that a suburban community here is bringing in one of those programs that tries to "convert" gay teens to heterosexuality. I feel like the city is surrounded by ignorance and that it is trying to move in on us.

Here you can see a ring which is touted as 100% effective. Read the other false and ridiculous statistics. There are over 3 million internet entries about virginity - it's a cult!

http://www.ihs-ihs.com/abstinence_ring.html

This is about the documentary, "American Virgins," by the BBC. This is another embarrassment for our country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/3419693.stm

Is fear of cervical cancer at age 60 really going to prevent teen sex? Some politicians & religious leaders seem to spend a heck of a lot of time thinking about gay sex and teen sex.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/pollitt

Posted by: DiAnne at October 16, 2005 10:30 AM

Great platform, but we need to remember a few things.

On #3: the ADA was weakened by none other than TOYOTA, a company many progressives consider an ally because of its Prius. Toyota hired John Roberts to do it. Just go ahead and Google "John Roberts Toyota" for lots of documents on this. Toyota is also supporting some of Ahnuld's anti-labor propositions in California (check buyblue.org for list of propositions and corporate supporters). Needless to say, I will never have a Prius in my garage.

#6: right on. If the Republicans don't want homosexual agenda funded with public money, we certainly don't want their Christian agenda funded with public money, either. And unlike homosexuality, which is NOT a choice, Christianity (or any other religion) is a CHOICE.

As for LGBT stuff in general: Christy has been telling me about this for a while, but this shouldn't be about just gay rights, it should be about civil rights in general, which we seem to be doing in this platform. But we still need to remember one thing: marriage in itself should not be a privilege or penalty. Our current legal and tax code is skewed way against singles (anyone who's not married, including cohabitating straight couples, solo singles like me, and of course gays). We must fix that, and turn the gay marriage movement into a SINGLES RIGHTS movement.

End of rant.

This is about the documentary, "American Virgins," by the BBC. This is another embarrassment for our country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/3419693.stm

Posted by: DiAnne at October 16, 2005 02:04 PM

The immigrant megachurches in SoCal are especially working hard on the abstinence thing. At least America is not alone in this shame; the immigrants' home countries, especially Cuba and Korea, are with us in the shame too.

LOOKY LOOKY LOOKY

ROVE AND LIBBY ARE GETTING INDICTED

Kristol: Rove and Libby Will Be Indicted
Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, commenting on Fox News Sunday about the leak scandal:

KRISTOL: But talking to people pretty close to both Libby and Rove outside of government, who therefore can talk about it, I think they expect the worse now. I think they –

WALLACE: That both Libby and Rove will be indicted.

KRISTOL: I believe, if I had to predict – and I don’t know more this than anybody else reading the papers – that both Libby and Rove will be indicted, not for what the original referral was about but for some combination of disclosing classified information or perhaps failing to be fully candid with federal investigators or with the grand jury.

www.thinkprogress.org

The people in Ohio and Kansas who recently voted to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions were not worried about money and benefits. They were obsessed with a sense of propriety, and imagined normalcy, being lost if, God forbid, people of the same sex actually had the same rights as they did.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at October 16, 2005 01:21 PM

And BEFORE people were told what to think by their preachers there was what...?

Single people cohabiting "without benefit of marriage" (heterosexuals and homosexuals) who wanted to put their significant other on the employee health insurance policy if the significant other didn't work for someone who offered a good health insurance plan or didn't have health insurance at all, and they wanted to allow their significant other to make life and death decisions if they were disabled or unconscious, not family members who were well-intentioned by didn't have a clue, or if/when family lived thousands of miles away or on another continent or were dead....

It's only been since 2000 that the religious right's snarky sermonizing has obscured the money aspect of homosexual (and by extension, single heterosexual) relationships to the exclusion of all else. Sheeples are good at repeating what they're told (and voting as they are told), so they would have adopted the obsessive talk about sin, hellfire, and brimstone, and voted against any permission for marriage for anyone other than heterosexual people. They were told to be obsessed with the propriety of homosexual relationships; they are not remembering that the health insurance (i.e. money) issues and next of kin issues were very much the topic before 2000.

The whole issue started out being all about insurance money, specifically health insurance costs, first and foremost.... but people have been told otherwise from the preacher's pulpits and lamestream media has perpetuated the myth that it has to do with religion and morality.

Regarding the Constitutional argument.... If Ellis had said "Based on what this says, I conclude..." (he did give his own opinion, after all). I object to Ellis trying to read the minds of dead men and his phrasing it the way he did. Religious fanatics use the same phraseology, and I find it the most objectionable thing possible when they try to read the minds of dead people, and then end up giving their own opinion and interpretation (which may not be what a verse in the Bible said if one reads the whole chapter and verses before and after his pet verse he uses to make his point)... and then try to make it sound like it's something the dead people would say or do. If people want to use old documents as guidance to make modern decisions, fine; that's what precedent is all about in law, especially.

I do believe you are right in that the Founding Fathers knew people would use the Constitution as a guide long after they were dead, but change things as needed - they were the ones who drew up the Bill of Rights which were the first ten amendments to the Constitution, so they modified their own original document. But for Ellis to write like he knows exactly how the Founding Fathers thought (in exactly the same way preachers give their opinions from the pulpit and then try to say they know the mind of the supreme being and expect their parishoners to obey them like they would the supreme being if it exists) presumes too much, IMHO.

Posted by: NonnyO at October 16, 2005 03:09 PM

Obviously, no one knows conclusively how anyone would think two hundred years later. Everyone who speaks on such an basis is, of course, just expressing an opinion - even if some opinions are likely to be better informed than others.

I personally think that it's helpful to have historians like Ellis champion the progressive view as forcefully as the Federalist Society types defend the conservative view.

I have posted this for several days in a row, and now I am "on topic". Read the pdf and see if you can keep yourself from gagging.

Meanwhile look what is brewing in Illinois:

Defending Marriage: Why We Can't Settle For "Civil Unions".

This is a full out assault on gay rights in Illinois. The talking points are as preposterous as one could imagine. This effort will be used to help keep the Progressives from gaining political ground in this state. Henry Hyde's seat is open in the Congressional Sixth District. The Republican candidate for this district actually makes Henry Hyde look like a liberal.

http://www.illinoisfamily.org/cu_4_05.pdf

Posted by: oncall at October 16, 2005 04:12 PM

Couldn't agree more. These psychos are locked and loaded.

Posted by: Christy at October 16, 2005 02:55 PM

I predict a lesser charge they will spin as a victory over evil.

Posted by: oncall at October 16, 2005 04:12 PM

And to even think that some gays and transgenders (including Ann Coulter) defend these positions and themselves call for gay marriage bans...

Apparently the gay community has not learned any lessons from the fate of Jewish Nazis and black Klansmen.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at October 16, 2005 04:02 PM

As long as Ellis phrases his sentences in ways that the reader knows he is expressing his own opinion and not presuming to imaginatively speak for the Founding Fathers who can no longer speak for themselves, I would have no objection....

I'd like to imagine that I could have lived in 18th century America and that I could know how people thought then, too... but that's so unrealistic as to be funny. In my genealogy papers are copies of two pages from the MA Supreme Court Archives. One from Sept. 1733 when Abigail, a single woman, brought a suit against Caleb because she was pregnant by him; Caleb's father posted his bond.... In Apr. 1734 she gave birth to a son. In Dec. 1734 the law suit was dismissed and Abigail was fined four pounds for fornication!!! Caleb? He got off without a fine or any other form of punishment, and released on his own recognizance. No record of marriage, but the couple must have gotten married for Caleb to be let go without any punishment, and they did have other children. (There is a record of a fire that destroyed records for the area and time period they lived, so it's possible the record of their marriage went up in flames.) Yes. They are two of my direct ancestors.

I can't imagine myself back to 1733/34 and try to figure out how Abigail felt... but I can hope she was not raped and that she willingly had sex with Caleb.... The son from that union was later known as Capt. Caleb and he was listed on the MA Banishment Act of 1778, along with his second son - I descend from the first son, another Caleb, who went to ME. I have a copy of Capt. Caleb's will from New Brunswick Archives dated 14 May 1798. Loyalists there... and on one of my other genealogy lines was an ancestor who was at Valley Forge in 1778, and several others who fought but didn't die during the Rev. War....

Point being, I can't say of my 18th century ancestor who was a near contemporary of the Founding Fathers: "I believe Abigail felt..." or "I think Abigail thought..." or "Abigail would have done this that or the other thing if she were alive today...". I don't know how she felt; I don't know what she thought; I don't know what she would have done if she were magically transported to the early 21st century. She's dead and can't speak for herself. From a 21st century perspective I just see the unfairness of her being fined for fornication when her sexual partner, later husband, presumably, was not even fined. I can wonder how she felt, but I can't know for sure. I can speak my opinion on the matter 270/271 years later, but I can't speak for Abigail; that would presume too much if I tried to do so, and I would overstep the bounds of propriety if I tried to speak for one of my ancestresses (even if I would just dearly love to let my imagination run wild with several different scenarios about the whole matter...).

If Ellis states his opinion as his own and doesn't dreamily go off and say what he thinks the Founding Fathers would have said or felt or done more than 200 years after the fact, I have no quarrel with him. As long as he expresses his own opinions, I likely would agree with what he has to say. It's when he goes dreamily off to imagination land and says "he thinks the Founding Fathers would have...." that I stop listening to what he may have to say. He ought to clearly state that he is expressing his own opinions without resorting to the appeal to authority - it makes him sound less than confident of his own opinions. As one of my philosophy professors was wont to say: "What ought to be done can be done."

:-) And, yes... my last sentence from my last entry is a direct "appeal to authority"! ;-) The one philosophy prof quoted the line often in various lectures.... I think he was quoting someone else, but I've long since forgotten who. That prof and I disagreed about a lot of stuff, but I learned a lot from him and he always gave me an A anyway....

OT, but the plot thickens...

'Hidden Scandal' in Miller Story, Charges Former CBS Newsman
--snip--
There is one enormous journalism scandal hidden in Judith Miller's Oct. 16th first person article about the (perhaps lesser) CIA leak scandal. And that is Ms. Miller's revelation that she was granted a DoD security clearance while embedded with the WMD search team in Iraq in 2003.

This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists and the New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so compromised. It is all the more puzzling that a reporter who as a matter of principle would sacrifice 85 days of her freedom to protect a source would so willingly agree to be officially muzzled and thereby deny potentially valuable information to the readers whose right to be informed she claims to value so highly.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001306732

Nat Hentoff | McCain Vs. Bush

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101605A.shtml
The ethics of the United States is tested during a period of fearing terrorists and engaging in war. The Senate Condemns Torturing Anyone in American Custody Anywhere, unfortunately this motion is in defiance of the President.

and ..

THEY'RE GOING TO TRY TO EXEMPT THE CIA FROM THE TORTURE PROHIBITION

That's right. There are evil forces still working behind the scenes to try to cut the heart out of the anti-torture provision, which was passed 90-9 by the Senate, in the conference on the defense bill with the House. What part of NO TORTURE don't they get? They want to cut the CIA a blanket "get out of atrocity free" card, in actual effect, by omission, to AUTHORIZE torture by its worst offenders. Please contact all your members of the House and Senate at once and tell them this attempt to subvert the will of the people is a further outrage!

http://www.nocrony.com/no_torture.htm

The fingerprints of shadowy "security agency" operatives are all over Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, and all the other reprehensible conduct that the overwhelmingly supported McCain amendment was passed to address. And the worst culprits must NOT be allowed to escape the reach of its intent. In particular, leading the charge on the conference committee will be three of the only nine senators who voted FOR more torture, Ted Stevens (AK), Thad Cochran (MS) and Kit Bond (MO), so if you are from any of these states, your voices and those of all your friends are especially needed now.

Chuck in Houston for All:

On this original intent issue, by which is meant, I suppose, the collective will, I suppose, of the framers of the US Constitution and the first set of amendments (The Bill of Rights), I believe the intent was to estalish two guiding, and often conflicting, principles for legitimate government: majority consent balanced and individual rights (which in a sense are the rights of members of an unpopular minority group, by extension).

Much of the rest seems to have been a matter of compromise, or expediency, or political horse-tradeing between notables fom big and small states, slave and non-slave states, and other interests, etc. (i.e., balancing entrenched parochial interests against the requirement to form a central structure).

From what I recollect reading, many of the framers realized as much and left it open to future developments and the future evolution of democracy, really to future citizens, to address the obvious gap between the guiding principles and the rules expressed in the document itself. I think that was their original intent, as a group.

Chuck in Houston

I wonder if the framers would have considered torture or other cruel and unusual punishments administered without a public process OK as long as it was only applied to foreigners deemed hostile at the sole discretion of the President?

Chuck in Houston

I apologize if this is not the proper blog for this.

My friends and i just returned from a 5 week business and political outreach tour of China. It was spectacular, it was eye opening, and it affirms the suspicion that few in our government understand what is occuring in CHina.
There are over 250,000 buildings taller than 70 stories going up. Over 257 Technical Universities, over 100 million square feet of residential, more than 50 technical and research business parks being built.
We saw physics research parks of over 50 square miles being built, massive constructions projects and aerospace manufacturing plants.
CHina is expanding at a much higher rate than people realize.

It was Political response that truly warmed my heart. Some of the sameple questions and concerns;

Do you miss Senator Wellstone? Senator Paul Wellstone was truly admired for his social causes and spunk.

Will Hillary clinton run for President? There is a Fascination and Love for all things CLinton in China.

Why isnt Uncle Bill ( clinton ) more involved in foreign relations? Bill CLinton is looked upon with great admiration in China.

I wore my Kerry shirt and was stopped by people in the streets, asking how could we have elected Bush again, etc. Republicans and Bush have littel support in China.

It was the talks with directors and secretaries of the peoples party that really set things apart. They love democrats, and have branches of democratic party in their government as well. It is still early, but these groups are developing and branching into official positions.

We had a Grand time, much of being prepared for the discussions with party and government officials occured reading these blogs.

We ignore China at our own peril, we met trade and government delegations from Spain, Germany, France, England, Italy, all over the world negotiating with Chinese officials to access the worlds biggest market in China.
PS, the food was incredible, you can buy real fruit, not the trash sold in our stores today, on any street corner. Oranges that taste like Oranges, dragon fruit, exotic berries and bananas, etc.
And the women are incredible fashionable, latest european styles and haircuts. The men wear sports coat or a suit, everywhere.

So....

When ARE we going to be able to discuss the KNOWN Isreali spies in the Pentagon that forged the Niger Documents without the posts disappearing...?????

THAT IS a VERY interesting question though, aint it?

Posted by: Toolmaker at October 16, 2005 08:00 PM

The government of China was siding with W in the last election though...

But the table has turned. A generation ago, China and other Asian countries have looked to the US for the riches and the latest technology. Now, we have to look to China and other Asian countries for the latest.

What I do know for sure is that China understands capitalism better than the US, and is also more compassionate at it too.

Interesting discussion today. I don't see this debate in shades of black or white, or in an ideology that defines the matter in terms of right and wrong.

Ellis' argument sounds a little weak and iffy to me, in fact Matthew I think you have in times past presented much stronger arguments yourself, although the argument itself is not an easy one.

I find, for myself, the answers to these questions become a little more nuanced each time I think about them.

People who object to gay rights regarding civil unions appear on one hand to be biased, prejudiced, and bigoted. On the other hand, democracy is based on the wishes of the majority being proven in vote, then translated into law, is it not?

I realize that this has been primarily used as a tool by the right to get people to focus on one idea to the exclusion of all others, by playing on their biases, prejudices, and bigotry. What then, of the other voters who indeed feel that to vote for civil unions is a vote against their consciences for whatever reason? Does not the majority still rule?

For years now the right has been hammering away to make an obnoxious scene over gay rights, and has underhandedly included clauses in petitions at voting time that not only ban gay "marriages", but ban all other forms of civil unions that could be recognized as appearing in any way as a "relationship that resembles marriage." That clause was included in the petitions and voted into state law in several states in the '04 general election, including the state I live in.

The best defense is a good offense, and as soon as the current regime finishes imploding, we should have viable arguments and IMO, printed material ready on the moral positives behind progressive positions in many arenas, including civil unions and civil rights. We should be in the process of drafting and getting our uniforms fitted for the big game. If we don't state our moral positions loudly enough, once every state that would pass it has voted against gay marriage or civil unions, it could be anything else, and, IT WILL BE. Who knows what next time:

Smoking? Reading the wrong books, seeing the wrong movies? Associating with the "wrong" people?
ANYTHING to keep people divided on moral issues.
It has worked before, what makes any think they will stop with these issues? They will dredge up more as time goes on. And, so far, it has worked.

Simple fact is, man cannot control everything in society, and it is a statistical fact that the more religious control that is put on any society, the more drastic the crime, suicide, unwed pregnancy, etc. rates go up.

Personal liberty vs. religious control. Religious control has been used toward evil for centuries, as we all know. There is no freedom so dear as the freedom to choose, as Karen said.
And, while they can force people to "sit down", many will be "standing up" on the inside.

But that isn't really my point.

We need a STRONG MORAL MESSAGE out there, and we need it thorough, in both easy to understand language, and nuanced for those who prefer the details. But, IMO, we need it. NOW. Then every time the Ridiculous Right starts the mind games, we hit them head on with our pronouncement.
Also, before they start, our positions should be out there, on the offense.

They are self destructing and imploding. When all the King's horses, and all the King's men are trying to put Humptey Dumptey back together again, our voices better start singing and rise to a sustained crescendo. And our feet better be ready to hit the ground running, and our leaders should emerge.

The time to plan is NOW.

Once the progressives have shown a bewildered and betrayed America it's positive moral and social values once again, this country can start to heal.

Don't let the cruelness of a few ruin it for them all.

Posted by: Christy at October 16, 2005 08:02 PM

Christy, we all know that Israel under Ariel Sharon is not to be trusted. I've been in touch again with my writing teacher (who's Jewish) lately, and she's agreed that Sharon does NOT stand for the real values of Judaism.

no Sharon is a butcher

However, those Niger Doc. came from somewhere and if it is true they were planted by Sharons butt boys then we are in SERIOUS SERIOUS trouble

Chuck for Truth:

I don't entirely agree that "democracy is based on the wishes of the majority being proven in vote, then translated into law....?" I think that is only half the question, or one of our two ying-yang priciples: majoritarian rule AND individual liberties.

Determining majoritarian rule is, in principle, simple, while drawing a firewall around infringements on individual liberties by majoritarian rule, is tricky.

It's not always trickey. For example, if the majority had brown eyes, by say, 51% to 49%, and voted en-bloc to pass a law to kill anyone with blue or green eyes and then divide their property up amongst the brown-eyes, well, that would be a failry clear-cut case where majoritarian rule infringes on individual liberties.

Then it proceeds down successive levels of nuance -- say brown-eyed people can buy or sell green and blue eyed people, to restricting marriage between these groups. Then say only a radical minority of brown-eyed people believe in such absurd dichotomies, which believes very much offends and frightens, naturally, green and blue eyed folks (and many brown-eyed ones in this parable). Should the radical brown-eyes be allowed to stage mass demonstrations in public areas where blue and green eyed people tend to congregate? If the majority says that male and females' with different eye-colors can declare themselves a couple by law to claim certain legal benefits, can they deny it to male-male or female-female couples, regardless of eye-color? Does a person of any eye-color or sexual preference have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded airplane where there is no fire?

My own way of drawing the line is to apply a sense-check as follows: does some illegal behavior by an unpopular minority directly and demonstably harm the interests of individuals in the majority? If such harm can be argued, is it significantly more serious than other actions by individuals currently considered legal?

Obviously, "demonstable harm," especially when it's relative, is very subjective. Given that subjectivity, and given that, assuming healthy democratic institutions, it is near impossible for a minority to oppress a majority, I prefer to err in the direction of reading more legal protections to individuals than less under the Constitution. I like to think that was the real intent of the framers, on their better days.

Chuck in Houston

Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at October 16, 2005 08:16 PM

For the record, if you asked the Founders, they would say that they gave us a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracy was apparently a dirty word in the late 18th century - the rule of the mob.

So, OK, yes, I admit, I'm a bit of a libertarian when it comes to private or personal behaviors. I also think that the libertarian approach is a moral values issue that can be expressed simply (not by me, obviously) and applied to some general cases.

Chuck in Houston

Chuck in Houston for Cyrano on Framers' Probable Concept of Democracy:

I think that prejudice against the "direct democracy" in some upper class circles educated the entire "Federalist-Anti-Federalist" debate (along with several other cross-cutting issues) and certainly was a major issue in the rise of the Jackson "frontier democrat" movement, which many see as the beginning of the genesis of the Democratic Party up to the Civil Rights era(just as Lincoln's transformation of the Addams-type Whiggism began the genesis of the modern Republican Party up to the Civil Rights era). Actually, there was probably a great deal of argument on this type of issue among the framers -- which is probably a strong challenge as to refering to their "intent" -- which framer's intent would govern? How would a historian (or Justice of the SCOTUS) determine that a single collective intent even existed, much less what its content?

Chuck in Houston

Posted by: Cyrano at October 16, 2005 09:08 PM

For the record, yes, that's true. They adopted the same idea as some of the Greek philosophers - Plato, for one - who did, in fact, consider democracy mob rule. They advocated having a republic. You have to read Plato's Republic for more details, but the representative form of governmnet is loosely based on The Republic.
A Google search will turn up several web sites that will give you the entire text of Plato's Republic. For giggles, also Google The Symposium... For the record, a symposium is a drunken gathering... the phiilosophers set the rules of the topic, who would talk when... and they proceeded to get very drunk and discuss topics. The Symposium is about ideal love... ;-)

From today's Albany Times Union

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=409562&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=10/17/2005

I will be going up to hear the arguments.