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The Spectacle Blog
My local newspaper, the News & Observer of Raleigh, today proffered another story on the upcoming marriage-amendment referendum in North Carolina. This piece was penned in the context of pending pro same-sex marriage legislation in Maryland and Washington State. The underlying theme is that North Carolina is bucking a national trend in putting a traditional marriage amendment on the ballot in May.
A key point that wasn’t emphasized in the N&O story, however, is the method by which same-sex marriage is meeting success in these states. Currently, six states (plus the District of Columbia) issue marriage licenses for homosexual couples: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Massachusetts, Iowa, and Connecticut do so through judicial ruling; neither lawmakers through legislation or the people through referenda have had a direct say.
New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont have OK’ed same-sex marriage through legislation. In two cases, the final vote was narrow — New Hampshire, 198-176 in the House, 14-10 in the Senate; New York, 80-63 in the lower house, 33-29 in the Senate. In Vermont, the winning margin was more significant: 100-49 in the House and 23-5 in the Senate.
In contrast, traditional marriage amendments have passed by popular vote in nearly two-thirds of the 50 states. The largest margin of victory was Mississippi (86 percent). California and South Dakota had the narrowest winning margins at 52 percent each. The average victory percentage is in the mid-60s.
Supporters of same-sex marriage argue that the national tide is swiftly turning on the issue. Recent polling indicates that they are correct. But in fairness, it’s important to point out that traditional marriage has been tested in 31 states through a popular vote and stood up every time. In contrast, an initiative to legalize same-sex marriage hasn’t once appeared on a statewide ballot. The only successes have come through judicial intervention or direct legislation.
The N&O — and left-of-center journalism in general — would have framed the story much differently if the situation were reversed: 31 states had legalized same-sex marriage through popular vote, and only six had banned same-sex marriage through judicial or legislative action. In that case, the N&O would have called it a few states squawking against the overwhelming will of the people. But because the scenario is the other way around, it’s a national tide.
Regardless of what one believes about the morality or immorality of same-sex marriage (or government’s role in marriage to begin with), freedom lovers can agree that it’s far better for these issues to be hashed out through a direct vote of the people or direct act of the legislature. That lends credence to the argument made by same-sex marriage foes in North Carolina who say it’s far better for voters to decide the issue — either pro or con — than for a judge or panel of judges to do so.
As to the argument frequently invoked by same-sex marriage supporters — that a majority shouldn’t vote on the rights of a minority — I point to the unborn child. What right is more fundamental than a right to life? Yet for 40 years, liberals have doggedly defended the notion that a woman’s right to her own body supersedes the unborn child’s right to life. There is no better example of a majority squashing the rights of a silent — and helpless — minority.
Update: Ding me for not doing enough Google research before posting this. It turns out that Washington State legalized same-sex marriage in mid-February after Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a bill into law. So that makes seven states that have legalized same-sex nuptials.
View all comments (32) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by David N. Bass
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Oldefarte| 2.22.12 @ 11:14AM
Homosexuals need to simply GO BACK INSIDE OF THEIR CLOSETS. The courts, legislatures etc need to reflect upon the fact that the NATURAL LAW is the basis for MAN'S LAW and that the former forbids homosexuality period!!!!!
Derek Leaberry| 2.22.12 @ 12:19PM
A big part of the problem is the idiot young who can't be bothered to read a dictionary or understand basic morality. About all the young are good for is as an economic stimulus to the tattoo industry.
Fiscal| 2.22.12 @ 1:09PM
So, OF, the bible says we shouldn't eat pork or shellfish, so we should outlaw that. We need to stone women for committing adultery, right? And whose "NATURAL LAW"? Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddha, or atheist? Just keep religion out of secular government. Since Catholics ban contraception, we need to do that as well. Do you even know what Natural Law is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
"Christian" Natural Law is a misnomer as it is synonymous with biblical law. It's another case where the Christian elite have renamed something for political reasons to make it sound better. What you really want is for us to become a Christian theocracy -- that's what your statement really means.
Other misstatements? "Pro-Life" for anti-abortion as the former would include capital punishment and military actions. "Intelligent Design" for anti-evolution as the former is a belief and the latter is a science.
And Bass makes another religious argument on abortion. When life begins is based on theological interpretation. Science doesn't define it. Science only defines what occurs at each state of gestation. Under the strict definition, contraception is abortion -- you know that, right? Only the Catholic church gets that one right.
Religion is generally a good thing, just don't start down that slippery slope to turn the U.S. into a theocracy like Iran.
Quartermaster| 2.22.12 @ 4:47PM
If you are willing to take Wikipedia as your authority on natural law, then all I can say is your raving in ignorance. Natural law existed long before Christ walked the earth. It is described in the hard sciences, not in scripture, although Christian scripture has no argument with it.
Stan| 2.22.12 @ 1:14PM
Same sex marriage would not have passed in NY except for some traitorous Rino's.
Drek| 2.22.12 @ 1:49PM
The notion that the line against such marriages can be maintained, absent the stigma against the underlying activity itself, is just brain dead.
If we allow the stigma against the underlying activity in question to perish, --------- then we are setting a date certain on which our society will celebrate the legal codification of homosexual courtship rituals. And that's the exactly the word, our society won't simply allow it, but "celebrate" it.
Which means, for the stigma itself to hold, we can't allow them in our military, we can't allow them to adopt, we can't in any way imply that we're, as Mark Steyn quipped, "cool and casual" about the underlying act itself.
hmm_contrib| 2.22.12 @ 2:02PM
This battle has already been lost: focusing on another's consensual sex life as a basis for one's civil rights or ability to participate in anything from marriage to defending our country is anti-freedom and no longer supported by anything like a majority.
DADT repeal was supported by how much of the country? Civil unions? Employer and housing discrimination protection?
Your focus (one might say obsession) with the "underlying act" of homosexuality is yours to deal with. If you choose to spend a lot of time worrying about the positions in which other people have sex, feel free, but don't expect the rest of the country to back you on that.
Drek| 2.22.12 @ 2:33PM
That first sentence has never been the view of generations, and for century after century.
Secondly, this too is something new that you've brought up, and one must add that those on your side have used that device to tremendous effect advancing your cause.
To take at face value, that anyone who had problems, who opposed the concept of marriage for them, and the underlying act itself, suffers from some kind of "obsession," "phobia" or other issue means that men for centuries, who have maintained that stigma, maintained that legal prohibition upon them entering field after field, means that HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MEN, through the years, through the centuries, ALL SUFFERED from this supposed "phobia" or "obsession."
So I have a choice, I can accept the wisdom of the ages, the considered and settled judgement of generations of men that went before me, ------------ or I can embrace this newfound notion that all of them suffered from some "phobia" or something, ------ and get with the program.
When you fingered me, ----- you fingered every guy who accepted that settled opinion before me.
I'm not the one out of it here.
It's our present culture that is so lost when it comes to even understanding the concept of Natural Law.
Don't take a look at me dude. Take a good look in the mirror. What else are you going to "tolerate" in the years to come?
hmm_contrib| 2.22.12 @ 1:56PM
" freedom lovers can agree that it's far better for these issues to be hashed out through a direct vote of the people or direct act of the legislature."
If we lived in a different country, maybe. But since we live in a constitutional republic, this is completely untrue. Should we have waited to reverse interracial marriage bans until they were approved by a majority? Should a popular-vote-passed ban on, say, the practice of the Muslim faith stand? No? Why not? Because the Constitution protects the rights of all, regardless of the whims of the majority.
The Supreme Court has recognized and affirmed marriage as a fundamental right some, what, 18 times? To ignore this right or subject it to majority approval is not what this country stands for.
And as for your abortion analogy: are you defending popular-vote limitations on our freedoms using abortion as your ethical model? Whose side were you arguing on?
David N. Bass| 2.22.12 @ 3:43PM
The fatal flaw of your analysis is that the Supreme Court has recognized the right of a man and woman to marry, not the "right" of a man and man, or woman and woman, to marry. Your response inappropriately conflates the two.
If you believe that a judge's interpretation should be more binding than the will of duly elected legislatures or of the people, be my guest. But supporting an oligarchy isn't a very popular position to stake out these days.
David N. Bass| 2.22.12 @ 3:48PM
The abortion analogy shows that liberals are quite content to impose their majority views on a minority when it suits their ends. President Obama's contraception mandate is another prime example. The majority belief that contraception should be "free" is imposed on the minority who are conscientiously opposed to it. And by the way, that infringes on a right that actually is delineated in the Constitution: freedom of religion and conscience.
Quartermaster| 2.22.12 @ 4:49PM
If this were a constitutional republic, your argument would be laughed out of court. Marriage as a right is a recent invention of the left, not SCOTUS. Marriage has never been a right.
hmm_contrib| 2.22.12 @ 6:42PM
It's ignorance like yours which scares me the most but is most easily treated:
"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
Quartermaster| 2.22.12 @ 9:59PM
There is an old saying "a text without a context is a pretext." You have pulled the decision totally out of context. To exercise your "right" to marriage, you have to find a person of the opposite sex to put up with your BS first. Two men can never have a union because they are not complimentary sexually. The decision has no meaning outside those two germane facts. The problem is not my "ignorance" but your willful perversity in support of perversion.
hmm_contrib| 2.23.12 @ 12:01AM
So you agree, then, that marriage is and has been a right. That seems in conflict with what you said previously ("Marriage has never been a right."). Does putting it in scare quotes, as you did, make it less painful to type -- or admit?
Sexual complimentarily is not a requirement for marriage - what marriage license apps have you been reading? Couples need not have sex to be legally married, nor even be attracted to each other, actually.
Again, you're discussing "things you think don't apply to gay people" not "things secular law says about a marriage license".
Thomas Aquinas| 2.22.12 @ 2:10PM
"focusing on another's consensual sex life as a basis for one's civil rights or ability to participate in anything from marriage to defending our country is anti-freedom and no longer supported by anything like a majority."
But gays are being asked to marry each other. That requires that we change what marriage is. That's something that no one can consent to. If I wanted the law to declare me a dolphin, and I consented to the law, that would not make me a dolphin.
The issue of consensual private activity--a legitimate concern of liberty--is not the same as asking the power of government to say that a particular institution is not what we had always thought it to be. Because those that disagree with SSM would have to honor this new "institution," it seems that you would need their consent to get it done.
hmm_contrib| 2.22.12 @ 3:09PM
What we disagree on, Thomas, is what marriage "is": a religious sacrament? A social construct? A legal license with assorted rights and responsibilities? To many of us, it's a combination of all three. That is not -and should not be - the government's concern, though. The government is concerned with marriage as a legal license: it hands out those licenses to couples, and there are legal consequences to that license.
Your argument over what marriage is, and the how-many-angels-can-dance-on-a-pin statement that no one can consent to such a change, is based completely on what you understand marriage to be. This definition has changed dozens of times (100s over the eons) from handing out property and inheritance rights to transferring women from a father to a husband to any number of other issues around consent and power which a thousand years ago would be unacceptable to us today - even you. And as society has changed, the definitions of legal marriage have changed as well.
When you say that marriage is no longer "what you thought it to be" and that your consent is required , I ask you: is your consent required to approve of Britney Spears' 1 day marriage? Was the consent of anti-miscegenation stalwarts required to extend marriage rights to interracial couples? From whom do we need permission to extend legal benefits to committed couples?
You can disapprove of the marriage license all you want, just as you are permitted to disapprove of older men with hot young wives or disapprove of interracial couples or any other pairing you don't happen to approve of or doesn't match your religion. But your opinions as to what marriage "is supposed to be" don't allow you to deny families protection and responsibilities to each under under the law.
Thomas Aquinas| 2.22.12 @ 2:11PM
Oops, I said: "But gays are being asked to marry each other." I should have said, "But gays are asking that they be free to marry someone of the same sex."
Thomas Aquinas| 2.22.12 @ 2:15PM
"The Supreme Court has recognized and affirmed marriage as a fundamental right some, what, 18 times?"
But if marriage is only between one man and one woman, then to not allow SSM cannot be an injustice, since marriage is about gender not sexual orientation.
Again, it comes back to what marriage is. You have to first answer that question before you can answer whether SSM is an injustice. AFter all, if a blind claimed that he was being discriminated against because United Airlines could not hire him as a pilot, it would do no good to say that under our law one has right to pursue any profession one chooses. For in order to be a pilot, sight is required. That's just the nature of piloting.
Again, what marriage is answers the question of fairness, fairness does not tell us the nature of marriage.
Drek| 2.22.12 @ 2:40PM
Saint Thomas,
The "argument" for "fairness" only serves to confuse the issue. Which is why it's been introduced.
I ignore it entirely, and zero in on the underlying itself. The mental image of that act is the best argument against any acceptance thereof. Because it so intrinsically and demonstrably unnatural.
Saint Thomas would not have shied from examining the underlying issue.
Do not accept that level of abstraction that those who desire to shatter the judgement of the ages insist upon.
Drek| 2.22.12 @ 2:43PM
And one more thing, ------- it is our sad lot in life that we have to take up the challenge upon this morbid issue.
Previous generations would have laughed out of the room as a lunatic anyone proposing society acceptance of them, let alone legal codification of their rituals. It would have been a joke.
I recall Churchill saying to Lloyd George when he proposed recognizing the Bolshevick government: "Recognize the Bolshevicks! You might as well legalize sodomy"
How sad for us that something so obvious, something so self-evident, a proposal so bizarre, has now become for this lost generation something utterly accepted.
hmm_contrib| 2.22.12 @ 3:12PM
Drek, do you think the sexual act itself should be outlawed? And for same-sex couples only, or for hetero couples as well? If so, why the disparity? Regardless, is this the concern or business of our government?
Derek Leaberry| 2.22.12 @ 3:50PM
The problem isn't the sexual act. I could care less about what people do in private sexually. The fight is over the meaning of the word marriage and has little to do with sex. So what are the central concepts of marriage? First, marriage is a term of long standing the confirms the joining of one man and one woman. Second, a conservative believes that the family is central to the moral order and a married man and woman are central to the family. Third, what the homosexuals truly wish is a validation of their immoral lifestyle.
In the end, the Left, whether homosexual or heterosexual, despises Christianity and the Christian moral order. In fact, the Left hates about everything that occurred in history before their beloved 60s. They have turned their backs on the past and wish only to progress into the future, willing to trash any tradition in favor of the new fad. Homosexual marriage is the new fad(destined to be affirmed at the 2012 Democratic Convention). Once the Left tires of the homosexual marriage issue, it will be time to press on to some other freakish spasm.
Drek| 2.22.12 @ 6:31PM
A much more sophisticated response.
Maintain the illegality, but simply don't enforce it. Turn a blind eye to it.
There's no way I would turn America's police forces loose ferreting out such activity. But the public restrooms need to be kept clear, ------ no toe tapping if you get my drift.....
Quartermaster| 2.22.12 @ 4:54PM
The homosexual act itself is a perversion of nature. The sex act was the act of procreation and homosexuality, in all it's permutations is sterile by design. Men are not complimentary to men. Denying that denies nature itself, and is the reason why homosexuality has been viewed a deranged.
You may not like that fact, but there are many facts that exist we don't like. Homosexuality is a serious mental illness.
hmm_contrib| 2.23.12 @ 12:10AM
Fortunately, the medical, psychological, and psychiatric experts in this country (probably a bunch of no-good elitists) disagree with you. So, again, all you have for the basis of this opinion and all the legislation is, "My religion doesn't like the way those people have sex." It's not enough to defend a law on, and it's rapidly becoming unable to even foster a majority for disallowing marriage equality - the battles over legal sex, military service, etc were long since lost in the public square. The question is how much longer will some people choose to let this irrational religious-based bias dictate their political choices.
Bob S| 2.23.12 @ 1:10AM
The link to Scott Lively's Redeeming the Rainbow is below.
http://www.massresistance.org/...../Redeeming the Rainbow smaller file for e-mail.pdf
He was a joint author with Abrams of The Pink Swastika, Homosexuality in the Nazi Party.
The fall out from the Massachussetts same sex decision in an appendix to RtR is enlightening.
The propaganda for what is "legal" now infest the elementary schools.
Like contraception on the national level, homosexuality on the state level becomes a "right" everyone has to partake of/get shoved in their face.
But of course, the left is not intolerant.
And down is not up.
Bob S| 2.23.12 @ 1:11AM
OK, maybe this one will work:
http://www.defendthefamily.com.....889235.pdf
Bob S| 2.23.12 @ 1:24AM
Well, hey. Why not go for the third strike?
Here's the link to the updated Pink Swastika.
http://www.thepinkswastika.com/
And before the usual suspects get too bent out of shape and start squawking about hate speech, I think it's called the First Amendment.
Something they also hate with a passion.
I guess "equal rights" includes that.
Oh, yeah. Before I forget. Privileging homosexual marriage over heterosexual polygamous and incestual marriages is just that: discrimination and special/unequal rights.
Bob S| 2.23.12 @ 1:51AM
A conservative jewish woman (guess we can't smear her as a sexist anti-semite) who some of you may have heard of, who writes with appreciation of Lively and Abrams research:
http://www.drjudithreisman.com.....astika.pdf
R. Freedom| 2.24.12 @ 3:22PM
“One of the reasons why I’m in favor of less government is because when you have more government, business takes it over.” — Milton Friedman
Politicians make promises, but then do different things when we’re not looking. We get the same campaign blather every election cycle, yet little ever seems to change. The reasons why? Big business, big labor, big education, etc., have seized control of our government. How do they do it? Through their smooth-talking K Street lobbyists and consultants.
Highly paid lobbyists/consultants like Newt & Santorum broker deals with government that gain their clients hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds (that some call plunder). In the process, lobbyists/consultants become millionaires while their wealthy clients become billionaires.
When Newt & Santorum were in Congress, they traded favors with big the big boys. Newt & Santorum used their political clout to give the big boys our money through use of earmarks, and the big boys returned the favors by contributing to Newt’s & Santorum’s re-election campaigns.
Capitalism is a tough game. Competition is fierce. The risks of failure are high. The profits are sometimes low. But theft from the government is a much easier game. The risks are low; the rewards are high; and there’s enough for everyone with connections & money to pay for it. The big boys just pay off the Congressman, and stick our money in their pockets. Now, I’m not accusing Newt & Rick of crimes. As Washington insiders, they’ve ensured this sellout is perfectly legal, in the same way they made insider trading illegal for all of us, but not them.
So, smooth talking politicians (BTW, smooth-talk is what makes them lobbyists/consultants extraordinaire) like Newt & Rick “talk the talk,” but when we’re not looking, they’re walkin’ the sellout walk.
The Tea Party needs to send them a message that “we’re mad as hell, and we (and politician/lobbyists/consultants) are not going to take it anymore.”