Gay Marriage Advocates Miss the Boat ... Again

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Don Roach, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

I’ve always believed gay marriage advocates, by and large, had an arrogance typified by people who think it’s their way or the highway. You come across these folks everyday while driving, at the grocery store, and I bet some of you even live with men and women who see the world only through their lenses.

Many gay marriage advocates are up in arms over the General Assembly’s passage of a civil union billed signed into law by Governor Chafee this past week.

Many gay marriage supporters criticized civil unions as discriminatory. In particular, MERI opposed language in the new law that allows religious hospitals, cemeteries and schools to refuse to recognize the rights granted through civil unions. Sullivan said his group will urge lawmakers to repeal the religious exemption.

I find this really funny. Gay marriage advocates are oft quoted saying that by not allowing people of the same sex to marry the state is barring them from a civil right – marriage – that should be free to all. As I’ve explained before, gay marriage is not the same thing as the civil rights struggle. With this issue, you are changing the definition of a cultural norm into something else. Some of you will agree or disagree with this notion, but what concerns me today is gay marriage advocates touting their ‘rights’ but ignoring the rights of others.

The US constitution provides for freedom of religion. Religious freedom is more foundational than voting rights, property rights, and many rights we couldn’t live without today. The country’s early makeup was that of persecuted religious sects who were seeking a place to worship in piece. When these sects came together to form a union they revered everyone’s right to practice their religion freely without persecution or an overbearing hand of the government.

Gay marriage advocates who have vehemently come out against the Corvese amendment are making a mockery of their position and the Constitution. Again, gay marriage advocates who are calling for the repeal of the religious exemption are making a mockery of their efforts to gain their ‘civil rights’.

How?

On one hand they are telling us to allow them their civil right to marry whomever they want to marry making the claim that the state has a responsibility to honor marriages between any two people. While I don’t agree with this, it’s at least got some logic behind it. But this position is completely undermined by their disregard of groups that disagree with them on religious grounds as they seek to undermine other groups’ ability to practice their religion.

In essence, they are making the claim that their rights are more important than others. And as I’ve said, far too often this mentality or disposition is what I have seen from gay marriage advocates. Many gay marriage advocates just miss the boat in that they don’t seem to respect a person’s right to believe differently from them based on religious ideals.

All the talk is about ‘equality’ and ‘rights’ but it’s their equality and rights as they define them. I hope Rhode Islanders will defend the rights of all without the trampling of one groups over another’s. I don’t believe there is an intrinsic right to marriage for any two people who want to marry, but I certainly believe that every citizen has the right to practice whatever religion they so chose. Many gay marriage advocates, apparently, don’t agree.

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Comments:

Charles Drago

11:21am on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

___________________________

The Short Bus Essay Contest winner strikes again.

This is precious:

"As I’ve explained before, gay marriage is not the same thing as the civil rights struggle. With this issue, you are changing the definition of a cultural norm into something else. Some of you will agree or disagree with this notion, but what concerns me today is gay marriage advocates touting their ‘rights’ but ignoring the rights of others."

It is PRECISELY a civil rights issue! The denial of civil rights to African-Americans was a "cultural norm" in the South, where racists claimed that segregation was a right to which they were entitled.

Would you have had the provisions of the Civil Rights Act brought to ballots? Would you have reduced it to a so-called states' rights argument?

Take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Norman Dostal

11:25am on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

I think youre an uppity negro. You dont own civil rights, boy-they are for ALL. Shame you never learned anything from your own history.
Religious rights NEVER trump civil ones-religion is faith-no basis for government. You do know that religion argued that blacks could not marry whites, right? and your own religion, from the bible, OK'd slavery and never spoke against it right?
Regardless, it's that hate that keeps the black man down-thats why your race perishes in this country and never advances-you are brainwashed by religious bigotry.
Sorry, gays will have full equality and you will go the way of the dinosaur.

ken fish

12:07pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

why does this empty-headed bloviator even get space? GoLocal dives deep into the barrel to find this guy...and further diminishes its attempt to become respectable, to its own detriment.

jandro t

12:15pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

I think the writer is confusing the First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of religion with a guarantee that the government will protect religious viewpoints. The Founders understood that reasonable minds could differ when it came to religion, so they sought to protect the civil rights of the holders of minority religious views by prohibiting government from elevating one religious view over others.

Therein lies the rub…where governmental policy happens to track some religions’ beliefs, and civil rights advocates attempt to change the governmental policy, the holders of those religious views see it as an attack on their respective religions. When governmental policy on its face is neutral with respect to religion, such as with marriage laws, but excludes a readily-identifiable group in effect, such as gays and lesbians, it would seem to discriminate against such a group.

This is why same sex marriage is a civil rights issue- it is not about religion, but rather about reversing a long standing governmental policy that marriage is only reserved to opposite-sex citizens. It is analogous to other civil rights issues, like miscegenation laws, racially discriminatory voting registration requirements, and property rights for women. One’s religious views may indicate that women shouldn’t be allowed to own property, but allowing women to own property as a governmental policy does nothing to diminish such a view. One is free to practice his or her discriminatory ways in his or her religious practices, but government has no business endorsing that particular view.

Leslie DeFacio

12:21pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

So a religious school that teaches the races should not mix, is okay?

The difference between the racial civil rights struggle and the current civil rights struggle?

Blacks were lynched in the public square by a mob in full daylight.
Gays are attacked and kill in the middle of the night behind a bar by a group of men with baseball bats against one unarmed person.

You're trying to do both now cloaked in a "sacred robe."

David Grossman

12:36pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

"With this issue, you are changing the definition of a cultural norm into something else."

So that DIDN'T happen when interracial marriage was forced upon the country (by the Supreme Court) fifty years ago? ...and that DIDN'T happen when women were no longer considered the chattel of the husband, 150 years ago?

This is the same specious reasoning that NOM tries to pawn off on everyone. For straight couples, the definition of marriage will remain EXACTLY the same: one adult heterosexual man marries one adult heterosexual woman. EXPANDING marriage to include gay couples does NOT change the definition of "heterosexual" marriage.

Here's my analogy: Marriage is like an apple pie. For the past 50 years, everyone has been using the same recipe. Before 1967, there was a different recipe that excluded interracial couples. That's not fair! Now gay people want to add pecans to the recipe. So has apple pie been redefined? No, it's still apple pie. In fact, the original recipe is still available too. So now everyone can have a piece of the pie.

Donn Roach

1:57pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

I think the above comments prove my point - "I’ve always believed gay marriage advocates, by and large, had an arrogance typified by people who think it’s their way or the highway."

Uppity Negro? Really...that's what you could come up with?

I really honestly believe many of the above comments do not understand nor have a willingness to understand people who do not see gay marriage as a rights issue.

jandro t

2:59pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

@ Mr. Roach: I, too, cannot abide name calling, especially racially derogatory slurs steeped in the history of oppression in this country.

However, I must take you to task for your belief that "many of the above comments do not understand nor have a willingness to understand people who do not see gay marriage as a rights issue". You seem to imply that people who don’t believe that gays and lesbians have the right to marry the partner of their mutual choice have the right to have their opinions ensconced in public policy. This would be analogous to saying that it is problematic that Martin Luther King, Jr. had no willingness to understand that George Wallace didn’t see Jim Crow as a problem.

You’re right…many of us don’t have a willingness to “understand” that others want to deny us a right reserved to themselves alone. Many times in various civil rights struggles, it is the majority view that is wrong, i.e. perpetuates a social injustice that American jurisprudence and traditions should find anathema. I think that trying to frame the issue by implying that marriage is a privilege rather than a right is misplaced, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s finding in Loving v. Virginia that marriage is a human right.

You’re absolutely entitled to your beliefs, but you’re not immune from criticism when your comments belie a bigoted belief.

Max Diesel

3:32pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Well Don, you certainly proved your point by poking the hornets nest. While I'm not sure I share your overall position, over the course of this debate, the attacks on Bishop Tobin certainly gave evidence to your arrogance theory. Activists not only dismiss a lifetime of teachings and beliefs, they mock them. Thank god for the internets.

Sorry, was that a bad closing. I couldn't resist.

Kerry Marchetti-Knarr

3:39pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Don, your argument on your right to religion is both lackluster and arrogant. Apparently, you have not thought this argument out well. As a small history lesson, you might recall that this freedom of religion you are touting was actually used against your race just a little over 140 years ago.

"It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts...Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible...I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.".
~Jeferson Davis – President of the Confederate States.

So with your argument, Jeferson Davis had a right to own slaves – you agree with that?

Shame on you for using the argument that was used on your own race! It seems to me that the idea of people’s right to religion, as outlined in the constitution means more than just protecting your right to practice your religion – I think it draws a line in the sand that protects all of us from each other’s religion as well.

Gordon Hinckly

4:02pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Well said Don Roach! Well said!

I'm tired of people infringing on my religious beliefs! Don't they know that because I have a Bible I know everything! Don't they know that since we know we are right in our belief in God we can't be satisfied living our religion, we have to make sure everybody else does too! I mean we need our laws to reflect our own religious bigotry it's our right! How dare people say that our laws should promote equality! my religion teaches that people aren't equal. I can own slaves, and women are created to be subservient to their husbands. I mean it's all in the bible right?

Prospero Suazo

4:06pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

What the hell is wrong with you gay marriage is about civil rights too.

Portsmouth Citizen

4:58pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Dear Mr. Roach:

Your article is filled with very many factual errors, but I’ll only take you to task for one of them. You wrote, "I don’t believe there is an intrinsic right to marriage for any two people who want to marry."

You are simply wrong about that. Since the 1880s, the U.S. Supreme Court has called marriage a "civil right" in 14 separate cases. That marriage is a civil right is long settled law. Some recent cases: in 1942, in Skinner v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court wrote, "We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage."

And of course, in 1967, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court wrote, "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. ... Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man."

So, Mr. Roach, I don’t care if you think gays are arrogant or whatever you think gays may be. But if you are going to make an assertion of law please first do about 5 minutes of research so you may have an informed opinion. In the United States of America, marriage is a fundamental civil right. Period.

Norman Dostal

5:57pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

OK, the uppity negro comment was out of line-sorry about that
BUT-you see the author only latched on to my insult-didnt say anything to counter the numerous facts presented by myself and the dozen others on here...

By the by, the uppity comment came from the start of your article-you stated that gays who fight for equality are somehow arrogant or egotistical-no, ignorant one, it is about rightness.
I DARE you to counter any of the arguments others have presented to you-
Your betters, Martin Luther King, his wife, Jesse Jackson all disagree with you-you are nobody-just an ill informed person who shames his race by trying tro subjugate a fellow minority-deep shame on you.

Max Diesel

10:21pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

__________________________

@Don,
They're making your point. Some, "you are nobody", obviously more than others.

Rick Lotz

11:21pm on Wednesday, July 06, 2011

I am a person of faith. My partner and I were married, by a rabbi, in a mainstream Temple, before God and our families. It was wonderful. It gave social and religious standing to what was already, for many years, the most important aspect of our shared lives.

People are free not to believe in God the way we do, of course. That's about faith, though, and I think we have to respectfully acknowledge that we may never agree, nor do we have to.

Now we are looking to protect our most important relationship legally, so that we are not legal strangers to one another. We share a house, a car, a mortgage, bills, decisions about what to have for dinner and decisions about life and death.

We've already made multiple trips to a very expensive lawyer to try to protect that relationship, but even our lawyer acknowledges the difficulty of doing so without a marriage certificate.
The lawyer has had to think ahead to all manner of possible situations just to try to make sure they are covered--they would have been automatically by a single marriage certificate.

Religious ceremonies are completely up to religious institutions. Some forbid same-sex marriages. Others celebrate them. That's fine.

Civil law belongs to everyone, however: religious, atheist, gay or straight. Civil marriage contracts ought to reflect that reality.

John McGrath

9:16am on Thursday, July 07, 2011

The recently passed gay marriage act in New York State has the strongest protections for religious groups that cannot agree in conscience to gay marriage. Yet gays in New York, a sophisticated group, are hailing the passage of this bill.

Gay Marriage Advocates Miss the Boat ... Again

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Comments:

Charles Drago

Norman Dostal

ken fish

jandro t

Leslie DeFacio

David Grossman

Donn Roach

jandro t

Max Diesel

Kerry Marchetti-Knarr

Gordon Hinckly

Prospero Suazo

Portsmouth Citizen

Norman Dostal

Max Diesel

Rick Lotz

John McGrath

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