From the Associated Press:
Maine voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking [no bias here!] defeat in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.
Gay marriage has now lost in every single state - 31 in all - in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine - known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate - and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.
Yet, you know we're going to end up with gay marriage anyway, no matter what the voters want.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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113 comments:
We're still at war with Eurasia and gays still can't get a marriage license. Where's the "change" we were promised?
Drats! Foiled by the Mormons again!
I wonder if, like Pauline Kael, any professional journalists know a single person who voted against it.
You'd think after 31 no's the gays would accept the wishes of the people. But no they won't.
You're 100% right. Like health care reform and illegal amnesty, gay marriage will eventually get ramrodded through against the wishes of the majority. The bright side? I am starting to have doubts that cap and trade will ever materialize.
Wait until the Muslims start stoning the gaysters at Times Square. Talking about liberal heads spinning. Of course, somehow, someway, it will be the fault of the Mormons and knuckle draggin' flyover country Christians, but it will be an interesting show watching the NY Times get to that point.
Sure is biased to note that people who wanted to marry each other will be torn up about their inability to do so...
"Yet, you know we're going to end up with gay marriage anyway, no matter what the voters want."
How true. I watched Breyer and Scalia on CSPAN a couple of days ago. When Breyer spoke I felt like he was talking about some other document than the US Constitution.
The really eerie thing was how "confident" he was in laying out his bizarre explanations. Scalia was caught by the camera looking away to the audience and shrugging with a puzzled kind of helpless smile on his face.
The reason why this issue has been "resolved" in Europe is coz the elites just did not bother to let the plebs vote on it. It was dictated from Brussels, like most of what is happening in Europe. The reason being of course that the elite know full f. well that the general populace is diametrically opposed to just about all of their programs.
Anonymous said: "You'd think after 31 no's the gays would accept the wishes of the people."
Yes, but in their minds, those 31 no's are more than outweighed by 40years of left-wing indoctrination, legislation, court rulings and propaganda, all promoting the tyranny of the minority over the will of the majority.
I'm not gay, but I'm not married either -- in fact, I will NEVER marry (I'm a white male in my 50's). With the way marriage is currently practiced in this country, I have too much to risk and too little to gain by marrying.
As I view it, if there is a threat to marriage, it is not so much the Gays as it is the current feminist version of 'marriage' as it is presently practiced. You know -- where the woman marries the man, then later divorces him, legally kidnaps his children, slanders his reputation with false charges of all kinds, and steals nearly everything he has (and will earn in the future) with the full approval and assistance of the government.
If anything, the concern and furor over Gay Marriage seems ridiculous, like a red herring that draws attention away from the present injustices in "no-fault" divorce that severely punish the husband ...
hmmm...
On second thought, maybe the best way to kill the idea of Gay Marriage would be to let the gays marry, and then put THEM through the wringer of "no-fault" Gay Divorce! Turn the divorce industry loose on the Gay community and let it do to the gays what it has done to hetero husbands, and the idea of Gay Marriage will probably become anathema.
The only foreseeable problem with this divorce scenario is...which of the two gay partners is going to get assigned the role of 'husband'? (Maybe the one with the greatest amount of money?)
Its pretty impressive that these referendums have happened at all considering that gay marriage has been a punchline for all of human history until about 5 years ago, and the only tactic successful in promoting it is abuse of, and appeal to prejudice against, people who specifically have a problem with it.
"Yet, you know we're going to end up with gay marriage anyway, no matter what the voters want."
Just as we're going to end up with:
- Amnesty for illegal aliens
- A value added tax in addition to a federal income tax
- Some form of socialized medicine
- Elevation of Spanish to a de facto official language
- Puerto Rico & DC as the 51st and 52nd states
- Recognition of Sharia law for settling civil disputes between Muslims (this will be under the guise of "mediation", a process I have some familiarity with having been a plaintiff in a real estate lawsuit recently)
Some of these things we will stumble, bumble, and fumble our way into, others will be done to us, against the explicit wishes of the people and/or regardless of issues of constitutionality.
As John Derbyshire says, we are doomed.
Gary marriage should be allowed, period. Allowing the majority to decide this is simply tyranny of the majority. At the same time, allowing the majority to vote themselves taxes and benefits they don't pay for is also a form of tyranny of the majority, and should be similarly outlawed. In fact, the majorities only areas of decision should be gray areas, where fundamental human rights are not at stake.
One more Obama appointment to the Supreme Soviet Court should do it.
You'd think after 31 no's the gays would accept the wishes of the people. But no they won't.
as steve said, you know we're still going to get it.
As in the EU, voting is just a formality. 10-20 years from now people who opposed it will be groveling like mccain did over approving an MLK holiday.
"...accept the wishes of the people."
Ha. That's never in the script. Unless it is the stupid, heartless, old, fudddie duddies seeing the light. Then, well it's rainbows and unicorns as another bastion of oppression falls.
Reminds me of the elections on the EU Treaty.
They will continue to be held until the voters give the correct answer!
Judicial review is not Constitutional. Repeat, the judges were never given the power to repeal law.
When will we get some leaders who stand up to the judicial elites who subvert democracy and tradition?
Measure 71, which extends all of the benefits of marriage to same sex couples while not calling it marriage, did pass by a narrow margin in Washington State. So, it appears that most voters have no problem with domestic partnerships for same sex couples. They just don't want it called marriage.
Tolerance is not enough. You must approve.
Many people think New England is very liberal. However, outside of the Boston metro area, New England is actually quite conservative, especially socially conservative. That the Maine state voters voted down allowing gay marriage does not surprise me.
The thing pissing off most people is the insistence on the part of gay leaders to go after a union that they call "marriage." Most people don't have a problem with "civil union". Most people believe property rights, inheritance rights, visitation rights, etc. should indeed be given to a couple who have established a special bond or union.
However, the word "marriage" itself is very important here because even those people who consider themselves moderate, conservative and even a few liberals believe that the cultural and historical union of a man and a woman has been around long enough to have "earned" it a distinction between a union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
The fact that in going about the process of seeking inheritance rights and property rights gays have not been content with "civil unions" but insist on "marriage" has pissed off people for both emotional and practical reasons.
On the emotional front what anti-gay marriage voters are saying is, "No! The union of two people of the same gender is, by definition, different from that of people of the opposite gender. We didn't say 'unequal'--just 'different'--so get yourself a different word!"
These emotions are reinforced when gay leadership seems intent on securing the term "marriage" rather than the rights that marriage confers. Makes people suspect that the goal is as much to stick it to heteros and to traditional cultural and religious norms and institutions as much as an attempt to secure rights. And, if you know a lot of activist gays, you know there's a lot of truth in that--they want to stick out their tongues at straights, at churches, etc. For some, it's payback, probably for a difficult childhood.
On the practical front, opponents of gay marriage are fearful that a legal redefining of marriage will eventually open a Pandora's box to other redefinitions of it. Gays pooh-poohed this argument during the Prop 8 battle in CA, but it's a valid argument. Indeed, groups seeking the redefinition to include polygamous marriages have already formed in California.
And, one can't escape either what is probably in most people's hearts--that we still believe a good dad and a good mom who are together are the best combo to raise children.
I'm glad you recognize that these votes are all violations of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Thankfully our form of government is a Constitutional Republic, not a direct democracy. Basic rights are not subject to the vote.
Of course the big corporations who run both parties are glad the idiot white masses are more worried about teh buttseks rather than the country's very profitable demographic and industrial collapse.
RandyB, good point.
"dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking [no bias here!] defeat in New". No kidding. Unbelievable (in the Dice Clay sense).
Forgot to add--
A gut feeling tells me that there's going to be an ironic confluence -- gay marriage will eventually and soon be legal in many states, maybe in all states if Justice Kennedy is persuaded once it reaches SCOTUS (and it may be headed there.)
However, an equally strong feeling tells me that within five years we have the answer to "the puzzle" that is homosexuality, at least in men. Got a feeling it's biological and preventable and if so, will anyone care anymore about gay marriage?
Like the Irish vote with the EU treaty, I am sure voters will continue to vote until they get it right. Once the correct vote is achieved, voters will never be able to vote on it again.
"Yet, you know we're going to end up with gay marriage anyway, no matter what the voters want."
Ain't democracy grand?
We'll end up with it sooner or later because liberals want it and at their heart they believe they know better than the people do.
I'm ok with it, simply because it will kill straight marriage, which has been a sham for 40+ years.
Marriage is Dead! Long live Gay Marriage!
This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows Maine.
Maine is really two different states. There's the coast from Portland south to the New Hampshire border, home to Massachusetts transplants and the largest gay enclave in New England after Provincetown.
Then there's the relatively poor rest of the state, up in the county as the say there, which is as red as any place in America.
Brutus
It's like the European Consti...oops, I mean the Lisbon "Treaty": keep making them vote 'til they get it right. All those "No" votes on gay marriage are only considered temporary. The "Yes" votes will be permanent.
I'm here waiting for the vituperation to commence. It's been almost a year now since we've seen a good gay hissy fit. Who do you think will get fired in Maine, besides that school teacher?
If this isn't proof that Democracy has outlived it's usefulness, I don't know what is.
I'm not sure marriage is as much of a priority for your typical gay man as is commonly believed. Lesbians, on the other hand...
Homosexuals actually had a real choice to get something better than marriage here, but no, they wanted the same legal time bomb straight folks get when they sign the contract.
If they had really been smart, they would have asked only for a few of the rights, such as being considered relatives at hospitals, receiving benefits like health insurance and SS and joint tax filing. They could have had all this and avoided the more troubling aspects of family law because straight people would have handed it to them if only they didn't call it marriage.
How foolish. They could have had it much better, but they want the entire rotten apple, worms and all.
I'm in favor of gay marriage. It seems to me that if Cochran and Harpending are right then male homosexuality is some form of infectious disease. Paul Ewald also makes this same sort of argument.
There is also a chance that male homosexuality is the result of being a genetic mozaic. I don't think there are any other plausible theories.
In any case there is good reason to believe that male homosexuality will not endure. The climate alarmists like to talk about the weather in the year 2100. It's hard to imagine that in that year there will be any male homosexuals still around.
In the mean time being a male homosexual is not a bed of rose petals. Gay men die early mostly from anal sex promiscuity diseases.
Smoking may cost you a decade of life. Being gay probably costs twenty years.
Furthermore dying of AIDS is a particularly nasty death. Society should do everything it can to alleviate the suffering while we wait for the exact nature of homosexuality to be discovered.
It is certainly impossible short of concentration or extermination camps to eliminate anal sex among gay men. But we can channel that sex drive into more stable and less promiscuous relationships with the institution of marriage.
The electorate vote against gay marriage because thay see it as an endorsement of homosexuality. But this is nonsense. No male will decide to become a practicing homosexual only now that the institution of marriage is available. Rather the gay married man may opt for sex at home rather than cruise the bath houses.
I remember a hot-pink poster I saw in 1990 at Berkeley's Boalt law school, titled "The Gay Agenda." It had ten items in gold sparkly stuff and item #10 read, "to turn western civilization inside out!"
Policies that the left can get through as civil rights are a ratchet. They can lose and lose and lose. But when they win, they win forever.
That said, if the state is going to give stuff to people who they want to live together forever, and are willing to have government involved in when they break up, meh, who cares? Personally I think the state should only be involved when people have, or are at least dividing labor as if they're trying to have kids.
Sure they put their willies in gross places. At one point, I had hoped the right would use the fact that hispanics are really disgusted by it as a wedge on immigration. But no, most conservatives would have lots of hispanics if means no gay marriage. Stupid party indeed.
"We're still at war with Eurasia and gays still can't get a marriage license. Where's the "change" we were promised?"
Obama doesn't care about traditional marriage or "gay" marriage.
He doesn't care whether he offends European leaders and being hated by that (perhaps he does care and it's on purpose?) To that end, add Merkel of Germany to a growing list of insulted Europeans whose invitation to Obama to attend the Berlin Wall destruction anniversary was snubbed (that's a huge topic).
He flat out doesn't care about much near and dear to the hearts of Europeans and SWPLs. He does care very much about something, though, and Steve wrote a book about this passion. It explains absolutely everything about him in both what he does here at home and internationally. It will even help you understand why he is dithering on Afghanistan.
The "elite" see the rest of us as born "haters".
Thus they feel justified to ram toxic "cures" down our throats.
Thus we are justified to hate them.
Maybe they just enjoy getting pummeled.
OT: Son says Obama father 'abusive'
barry's half-brother wrote a book . . .
@Anonymous,
Why would they accept no? They are getting closer and closer to a 'yes', and lose nothing by continuing.
What would change the field is if a group started getting traction pushing for greater restrictions on homosexuals. Then, it wouldn't be merely one group occasionally getting wins and so advancing, while the other side is continually playing defense. Rather, there could be significant social change in the opposite direction, to not only balance the wins by the pro-homosexual side, but perhaps even move the ball down the field in the opposite direction.
The sooner the better, Steve. Putting R-71 (gay domestic partnership rights) on the ballot in Washington gave a huge boost to liberaly turnout - which carried over into several pro-tax measures.
Give the gays their bennies and give me lower taxes. That's all I want.
Guys, we all know that Obama has done nothing to help gays so far, but nobody has explained why. There are 2 theories that I've heard:
1. Obama is worried being pro gay will hurt him with moderates
2. Obama is actually homophobic
I don't accept either of those theories and I have one of my own: Michelle is homophobic and she is pressuring Obama to not be the gay-friendly President he otherwise would be.
Actually, Steve should do a post about this and about homophobia amongst black females. They seem to really hate gays.
You'd think after 31 no's the gays would accept the wishes of the people. But no they won't.
That's because they see it as a matter of civil rights, which are not subject to "the wishes of the people." (Not saying I agree with them ... but that's how they view it.) If you had surveyed Southern states in 1954, I'm sure they all would have disapproved of school integration. Nevertheless, the Supremes decided it was a basic civil right regardless of popular opinion, so the schools were integrated against public will.
We have a constitution, interpreted by the courts, precisely to prevent "the wishes of people" from being enacted in situations where they would grossly violate the rights of minorities (of any kind ... including those with unpopular opinions, like Steve Sailer).
Thus, the real question about gay marriage is whether it ought to be considered a basic right, equal to the right of heterosexual couples to marry, or not. If so, then "the wishes of the people" are irrelevant. If not, then the gays might as well give up for now because, clearly, "the people" are not with them on this one.
Otis, you left out a possibility
3. Obama is closeted and doesn't want to look too "gay-friendly" (contrast Bill Clinton who led his first term with gays-in-the-military)
Of course, gay marriage has never existed anywhere as a legal institution in any civilization present day or throughout history (Andrew Sullivan does claim that an obscure ancient Chinese sect once legalized it).
But if you oppose gay marriage today you're a radical reactionary! Repeat: YOU ARE THE RADICAL BIGOT. YOU ARE THE RADICAL HATER.
And we can logically extrapolate from there that - because all of the other civilizations of human history prohibited gay marriage - then all of the other human civilizations in the historical record were irrationally bigoted and hateful and therefore illegitimate.
Which, of course, means intellectually setting the civilization clock to zero by erasing the value of the past.
Hmm. Who does that? Who is famous for wanting to set the civilization clock to zero? Mao, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot etc?
Get it? It's the same old relentless attack: a total inversion of a society's morals and cultural values, otherwise known as Marxist Revolution.
Steve Wood said
> If so, then "the wishes of the people" are irrelevant. <
They are supposed to be never irrelevant. "Consent of the governed" - something forgotten since at least 1865.
Wait until the Muslims start stoning the gaysters at Times Square. Talking about liberal heads spinning.
The heads of the Inner Party members won't spin. The foisting of "gay rights" on the masses and the simultaneous importation of Sharia Islam into western nations is not incoherent policy.
The Primary Directive of the Inner Party is to target leadership males of the majority population. All lines of attack serve this fundamental purpose.
Much as I admire Cochran and Harpending's other ideas, the gay germ theory is an unneccessary over-complication of what is basically a human reparative drive.
The best work on this has already been done, but of course marginalised by the pro-gay movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Moberly
The most effective healing groups for gay men who are conflicted are based on Dr Moberly's theories.
www.peoplecanchange.com
Human psychic attachment is as vital as any kind of physical nourishment, but it is a poorly understood process. In the 3-5% of the population that we call homosexual, it is severely disrupted...and usually presents as a serious detachment.
This is how the word 'queer' evolved, best describing heterosexuals' discomfort at the vibe given off by gay men who did not have attachment and self-object needs met in early life.
It is a problem of relations with the same-sex primarily, not the opposite sex,and this needs to be addressed before successful relations can be maintained with the opposite sex.
The addictive and compulsive behaviour often seen in gay men is but a strong attachment drive to the same-sex object. It is really a reparative drive.
Dr Moberly maintained that this was natural and legitimate, and if disrupted resulted in sexual confusion and acting out.
Issues such as gay marriage, will in future be seen to be irrelevant if the real etiology of this 'syndrome' is addressed.
Farmer F
Gay marriage, like fusion and reducing waste and corruption in government, is the wave of the future and always will be.
Oh, Farmer F,
You've bought into that whole psychobabble crap?
If that hypothesis were true--that gay behavior was an acting out to repair what was lacking in the boy's relationship with his father or with his male peers, the % of male homosexuals would be huge.
Is your name Jay Cost and do you write for Real Clear Politics:
http://www1.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/11/what_the_voters_told_us_last_n.html
"The nature of our electoral system is such that voters are given a very limited role in the process of governance. With the exception of ballot initiatives, they do not get to sound off on specific issues. And, when it comes to elections for office, they only get to register their preferences for a candidate. They do not get to indicate what they liked about their candidate, what issues motivated them, what problems are worrying them, and so on. The exit polls provide us with some insight on their motivations, but they remain fundamentally obscured."
Sounds like you and he are onto something similar.
Has anyone ever seen you two in the same room?
"Michelle is homophobic ..."
Really? Politics makes strange bedfellows. Well, you know what they say, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
"Actually, Steve should do a post about this and about homophobia amongst black females. They seem to really hate gays."
I have not observed this at all, at least among the more educated ones I've worked with. Quite the contrary.
... attachment and self-object needs ...
Say again?
I see from perusing 'progressive' blogs today that the Catholic Church has been designated the bad guy in the Maine gay marriage vote. It couldn't have been the hysterics of the gays and their 'progressive' friends that swung the vote, I guess.
Is the USA doomed to ever-Leftward cultural drift? Maybe not:
Blue State Exodus
By Joel KotkinNovember 02 2009
Appearing in: Forbes.com
For the past decade a large coterie of pundits, prognosticators and their media camp followers have insisted that growth in America would be concentrated in places hip and cool ( i.e., metrosexual -- DD ), largely the bluish regions of the country.
This narrative, which has not changed much over the past decade, is misleading and largely misstated. Net migration, both before and after the Great Recession, according to analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, has continued to be strongest to the predominately red states of the South and Intermountain West. ( I think he really means net white inter US state migration -- DD. )
This seems true even for those seeking high-end jobs. Between 2006 and 2008, the metropolitan areas that enjoyed the fastest percentage shift toward educated and professional workers and industries included nominally "unhip" places like Indianapolis, Charlotte, N.C., Memphis, Tenn., Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, Fla., Tampa, Fla., and Kansas City, Mo.
...
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/0090-blue-state-exodus
Funny things is, I think I've read articles in past years by one Joel Kotkin prgnosticating that growth in America will be concentrated in places hip and cool. Are any other iStevies familiar with Mr. Kotkin's writings?
Marriage is a fundamental pillar of our nation and of Western Civilization. Those who seek to subvert, undermine and destroy our great Nation and Civilization know well the pillars that support our mighty, blessed house. This is of but part of a pattern whose purpose we know...and we shall not abide. We humble people rose up a long time ago to build these United States and that spirit is still within us. Comes a strong man on a white horse.
Marriage is a fundamental pillar of our nation and of Western Civilization. Those who seek to subvert, undermine and destroy our great Nation and Civilization know well the pillars that support our mighty, blessed house. This is of but part of a pattern whose purpose we know...and we shall not abide. We humble people rose up a long time ago to build these United States and that spirit is still within us. Comes a strong man on a white horse.
the one question i have is: if gay marriage, then gay divorce. i expect that would cool heels rather rapidly.
the other positive: if abortion was outlawed, all babies carried to term, and gay couples must adopt them. two wedge issues eliminated in one fell swoop.
The reason why this issue has been "resolved" in Europe is coz the elites just did not bother to let the plebs vote on it. It was dictated from Brussels
A fair number of European countries have majorities who favor the death penalty, but EU law bans that, too.
Truth be told I honestly couldn't much care if gays get the right to marry. What's important is that if the elites tell us we must do it, that we do otherwise, especially if they try to ram it down our throats via the judiciary.
There's an old quote something along those lines. Enlighten me please if you remember it.
Yes, but in their minds, those 31 no's are more than outweighed by 40years of left-wing indoctrination, legislation, court rulings and propaganda, all promoting the tyranny of the minority over the will of the majority.
Indeed. Tried to explain that to a (very knowledgeable, well indocrinated) friend once. Schoolchildren are well indoctrinated about the dangers of "tyranny of the majority" but by my count the minority tyrants o hisory are ahead by a factor of about 1000-to-1.
As I view it, if there is a threat to marriage, it is not so much the Gays as it is the current feminist version of 'marriage' as it is presently practiced.
Indeed.
What I find more ironic is that we've spent the last 40 years telling straight people they don't need to marry - to have sex, to shack up, to have children. But who really does need it? The gays!!!
And if gay marriage is really the biggest civil rights issue left then it tells you that there aren't really any civil rights issues left - unless, you know, you start talking about the civil rights of whites.
In fact, the majorities only areas of decision should be gray areas, where fundamental human rights are not at stake.
But first we need to decide what exactly a "fundamental human right" is. Let's see, how shall we go about that ? Hmmm hmmmm, so tough, I don't know, hmmmm - maybe the will of the people? Marriage a fundamental right my ass.
10-20 years from now people who opposed it will be groveling like mccain did over approving an MLK holiday.
Well like I said above...
The fact that in going about the process of seeking inheritance rights...
Inheritance rights is a federal issue, since most inheritance taxes are federal. Why is property allowed to pass to one spouse tax-free after the death of another? Because in a great many cases one spouse made considerable financial sacrifice to raise children. What fraction of gay couples do that? 10 percent? Five percent?
For some, it's payback, probably for a difficult childhood.
News flash: kids will make fun of kids who are different. You'll never legislate that away. Deal with it.
Basic rights are not subject to the vote.
Where, Bob oh Bob, does it say in the Constitution that marriage is a fundamental right? Close relatives aren't allowed to marry. 14-year-olds aren't allowed to marry. You're not allowed to be married to 2 people at the same time.
If they had really been smart, they would have asked only for a few of the rights, such as being considered relatives at hospitals...
Oh God, honestly. How many people are actually denied visitation rights at hospitals? How many times have you ever actually been asked to present an ID or explain who you are? In 100+ visits to hospitals and nursing homes never once have I.
Thinking more about WHY gay marriage is failing to pass...
I suspect there's a distrust that the pro-gay marriage argument is really as innocuous as it's made out to be. Sure, the stated objective is that it's all about equal rights, equality for all. (After all, who could argue against "equal rights")? But there's a concern that there's something much deeper at work also: that gay marriage (more so than simply "gay rights" or civil unions) contains an unexpressed cultural agenda. There's a concern that such a change to the institution of marriage will have far-reaching negative social consequences that no one (pro-gay or not) can correctly anticipate.
Maybe this fear is irrational. Or worse, some may claim this fear is a simple manifestation of institutional bigotry. But the West has been down this road before. The pro-gay marriage arguments--and potential consequences--sound eerily familiar. It's objections can't be dismissed as prejudice.
I'm old enough to remember a very similar argument uttered by feminists in support of equal rights for women (and the ERA of the 1970's). Again, who could possibly be opposed to "equal rights" based upon gender? Both men and women should have equal opportunities--at work, in education, etc. Equal pay for equal work. It's all completely natural and correct.
But does anyone today doubt there was a cultural agenda behind feminism? And does anyone doubt that its unintended consequences have negatively affected society? Feminist culture has created the need to invent (or re-invent) a whole new set of words simply to describe its impact: e.g., misandry, matriarchy, female hypergamy. Moreover, the social statistics make one seriously doubt the notion that such an agenda had no negative consequences: higher rates of absentee fathers, greater gov't expenditures on un-wed mothers and their children, draconian divorce laws that disincentivize marriage, weaker social and educational performance of single-parent children, and most revealing of all: declining rates of female happiness--all in spite of feminism's so-called "progress" in the last 30 years (http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf)
Pardon the tangent on feminism here, but the argument is eerily similar. One concern today is that gay marriage mixes an element of the correct and noble (that those with a different sexual identity shouldn't be denied basic rights) with strong negative and unforeseen social consequences (a reversed cultural hegemony, a devaluing of cultural institutions).
I suspect its agenda and unforeseen consequences are one reason gay marriage initiatives are failing. And, sadly, this is also why gay marriage supporters won't be satisfied with mere civil unions or rights-based initiatives. Such weaker accomplishments don't upset the social institution.
"If that hypothesis were true--that gay behavior was an acting out to repair what was lacking in the boy's relationship with his father or with his male peers, the % of male homosexuals would be huge"
Agreed, but it is a matter of degree.
Sure, many men have a far from ideal relationship with their fathers, but here I am talking about a radical dis-identification, a turning inwards.
Who better to identify what the crucial deficits are but gay men themselves?
Farmer F
That's because they see it as a matter of civil rights, which are not subject to "the wishes of the people." (Not saying I agree with them ... but that's how they view it.) If you had surveyed Southern states in 1954, I'm sure they all would have disapproved of school integration. Nevertheless, the Supremes decided it was a basic civil right regardless of popular opinion ..
Actually, basic civil rights are subject to popular opinion. They're just subject to popular opinion greater than 66%. Get 70% of the people on your side and you can outlaw anything or anyone.
Yet, you know we're going to end up with gay marriage anyway, no matter what the voters want.
Honest to God, I hope the Supreme Court tries it - Stevens, Sotomayor, Breyer, Ginsburg, and I guess Kennedy. I hope they try it. If the voters can't stand up to the Supreme Court then we really are screwed. The 4 lefties on the Court are evil enough, I'm certain, but I'm not quite sure they're dumb enough.
Those who seek to subvert, undermine and destroy our great Nation and Civilization know well the pillars that support our mighty, blessed house.
I wish people would stop talking about our nation as being "blessed" and "divinely favored" as though it were on a mission from God. I love my country, too, but it causes us to swallow the multiculti/open borders/neocon bait everytime.
I love this place not because it's a city on a shining hill but because it's my city and it's my hill, and that's more than enough, thank you.
My stance on this:
Gay people can say that they consider themselves married, and they can set up households and they can even go through a ceremony if they want.
So, why do gay people need the government to consider them married and to have any involvement?
I would assume five possible reasons.
First either because they want the government's authority to say that their marriages are OK, which I don't think should happen (government shouldn't be involved in trying to do those kind of things to the culture).
Second to get financial benefits maybe, but those financial benefits draw from the majority, and if the majority does not see their unions as something that is worth spending money on, they should really STFU because it's the majority's fucking money.
Third, to establish themselves as equal under any law. Yeah, like I'm sure they'd want to be equal under a law that allocates equal spending on STDs without thought to preexisting medical conditions.
Fourth, to have a person guaranteed to have access when they are sick or in prison or something. Fine, but everyone should get that, not just marrieds, so it's pretty heavy duty and ignoring the real problem to institute gay marriage just to get around this.
Fifth, because they believe that when their magical government authority of approving their marriages takes effect, then the pattern of gay culture will totally change to a monogamous one. I reject this one because the world doesn't work like that and emphasising that the power of government authority to change culture just encourages the idiots.
The thing to realize is that much of the elite are morally corrupted. It was amazing to see so many of them stick out their necks for Polanski. I'm sure as many of them were corrupted in previous ages but they would have maintained a minimum of exterior respectability. Nowadays you have cabinet members in France openly admitting their perversions and backing up a pedophile. Why are we surprised about the topic under discussion or willful mass Muslim invasion? These elite hate the church coz it tells them they are corrupt. They will do anything to destroy Christianity.
"Blue State Exodus"
But doesn't that just mean that "red states" will get purplefied?
Gay men are like women and children, born to bitch and whine. If you give in to what they want, they will come up with something new to whine about and demand. Giving in to demands just leads to more demands. That is why schools draw the line at gum chewing. Punish the kids for gum chewing and you don't have to deal with boys who think they are girls demanding to be allowed to wear wigs to school.
http://www.39online.com/news/local/kiah-crossdressing-student-story,0,6183960.story
George Washington said
> Comes a strong man on a white horse. <
An unfortunate phrase in a thread about homosexuality.
Drats! Foiled by the Mormons again!
Apparently some think hate groups in the Vatican and, yes, Salt Lake are to blame.
the one question i have is: if gay marriage, then gay divorce. i expect that would cool heels rather rapidly.
I recall a statistic that showed very few gays actually avail themselves of 'gay marriage.' It seems to be utilized mostly by those who are past their useful shelf life.
Gays don't want marriage, what gays want is for society to officially declare that there is nothing wrong with them, that homosexuality is just as normal and desirable as heterosexuality.
Gay marriage is just a vehicle for this. The whole issue of marriage benefits is a complete red herring. Gays don't give a damn about the benefits, what they care about is the word "marriage". They'd be just as happy if the benefits were all taken away from straight marriage (indeed, some advocates have argued for this), as long as both gays and straights had equal access to the word.
You want more proof? How about the fact that if the multimillion dollar campaign to overturn Proposition 8 campaign in California had succeeded, gays would have gained no additional rights over civil unions!!! The entire thing, all the screaming and yelling and emotions, was about the word!
The fight over gay marriage (and socialized medicine and so forth) is like the fight between Batman and the Joker. The Joker need only win once to defeat Batman forever.
... the one question i have is: if gay marriage, then gay divorce. i expect that would cool heels rather rapidly.
That is a good, smart thought: if homosexual marriage is legalized in, say, CA, then California divorce law applies.
CA's so-called no-fault divorce law requires 50-50 split of all property and other assets upon divorce. Adultery is not a legal issue in CA divorce.
--In a defiant speech to several hundred lingering supporters, No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly pledged that his side “will not quit until we know where every single one of these votes lives.”--
from
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/128048.html
the other positive: if abortion was outlawed, all babies carried to term, and gay couples must adopt them. two wedge issues eliminated in one fell swoop.
If straight married people were required to adopt losers' children, they wouldn't want to get married either.
Damn stupid party. More retard babies! More NAM babies! More thugs and slugs being babbbydaddies! More bastard children!
If gay couples were required to cut off their feet, they wouldn't want to get married then either, so what?
Seems like you just want the government to force people you don't like to do things they don't want to do. You were probably all down with invading Iraq to punish them and save them simultaneously.
Instead of being the stupid party, be the grown-up party. Yucky faggy isn't very grown-up.
But the thing is, Mr.Sailer, you see, that the only people who should have any say on whether Adam and Steve get married are not voters, they are...Adam and Steve. Frankly, it is not anyone business whether two people join their lives or not, and voters certainly do not have the right to say anything about it. Gay marriage3 is something that doesen't affect anyone but the gay people getting married. All of the arguments used by conservatives and such to justify the illegality of gay marriage are very weak. Saying that the little children need a father and mother figure, despite the millions of children raised in orphanages or by single parents that turn just fine is idiotic. Saying that it will discourage straight men from getting married because it will make marriage into a gay thing, as if getting married to a woman will make people think that you're gay. But even children did need a father and mother figure to grow up balanced - and there is no evidence that they do -, this would only be relevant to gay adoption, and not to gay marriage. Why should individual people be punished just because the majority decides to uphold an anachronistic and arbitrary institution that exists more or less unchanged since the late Paleolothic era? Even if gay marriage affected straight people negatively somehow, it should still be legal because one of the fundamental and cardinal principles of Western Civilization is equality before the law. In fact, it is the single most important of all juridical fundamentals of the civilized West, and the illegality of gay marriage hurts this fundamental. The most fundamental legal principal of the West is this: you can't grant rights or duties to any specific groups of the society, but only to society as a whole. Things like gay marriage go against this principle. The military draft was ended, in part, because it discriminated against men, deeming a man's life as less valuable than a woman's when the law tolerates no such distinction. Steve Sailer strikes me sometimes as a totalitarian that wants to use the state to mold people's lives into some "grand" vision od society that he has. History proves this results in falure(communism, fascism), and history has also proven that the theme of the West over the past 200 years since the Elightment has been the increased freedom and rights of individuals over abstract notions like the "nation" or "society". So yes, gay marriage should be approved and voters should have nothing to say about it because it is none of their business and because it is unconstitutional to grant rights to a part of society but not to another.
P Coderch:
You're deeply confused on this issue.
If we lived in a perfect libertarian/anarchist society, then, yeah, John and Bill could declare themselves married and it wouldn't effect anyone else. But note: under those circumstances, Frank could equally well say, "No, dudes, you're not married. A man can no more marry a man than a cow can marry a gyroscope." Effectively, John and Bill would only be "married" for that portion of the community who regard gay marriage as a coherent concept. Not exactly what they would want, but also not coercive to those who don't share their views.
Compare the real situation: marriage is a public status, made and enforced by the state. Putting aside the benefits issue, the state is going to enforce at least feigned acceptance through hate-speech and non-discrimination laws and by narrowing the scope religious-conscience exemptions. That means fines, firings, and (if the Canadian situation is predictive) forced public recantations. Coercion all round.
mnl,
Well put.
'Gays don't want marriage, what gays want is for society to officially declare that there is nothing wrong with them, that homosexuality is just as normal and desirable as heterosexuality.'
Problem is, their reproductive powers equal zero. That's not really desirable in my book.Not exactly a characteristics of a living organism either.
PC Disclaimer for KK: I couldn't care less about someone's sexual preferences.
Farmer F said,
"Who better to identify what the crucial deficits are but gay men themselves?'
If you mean "deficits" in the sense of not feeling "like a typical boy" during childhood or not feeling they measure up to the average "masculine" boy/adolescent, well sure.
But feeling this deficit or being gender atypical as a kid doesn't have to have a psychological etiology--it can be biologically rooted and that then affects the psychological.
On a related matter--I have some issues with gays who pretend that if only society weren't as they term it, homophobic, homosexuality would be peachy keen and who get upset at the idea that one day maybe research will discover the cause and make it "preventable" if parents so chose to make it so.
It seems convenient for them to forget what being gender atypical was like for them as kids. That's not going to change no matter how society treats gay adults and no matter what kind of education gays manage to get into elementary schools.
This is represented by two gay friends of mine, one who holds the point of view that all we have to do is remove bigotry and another who has shared with me that even as a really small kid of about 4 or 5, he felt different and didn't like feeling different and didn't know why he felt different. He maintains he was not treated badly by anyone, just felt unlike either boys or girls and has expressed the loneliness of that feeling. He's all for science that will determine the cause and not opposed to any research for a "cure."
Problem is, their reproductive powers equal zero. That's not really desirable in my book.Not exactly a characteristics of a living organism either.
Err.., that was me up there, forgot my 15min signature...
About the French politicos, Polanski and the elites...
Don't ya know the elites of all ages have thought it "cool" to be decadent? Too bad so many upper middle class people think that too.
Marriage is not a right. It is a description.
The point of legal marriage originally was to make sure men supported their kids so the rest of us wouldn't have to.
Fathers would check out the prospective husband and a contract would be written or agreed to as to what he would have to do or provide in the marriage.
No one ever gave a sh-- about marriage as a right.
Marriage is an obligation; a contract.
Since gay men have to forge separate legal agreements to get kids, the marriage contract is pointless.
Lesbians can have their own kids but those kids aren't related to the other spouse, so once again, a marriage contract is pointless. The biological mother is already legally liable for the kid and her partner would have to adopt the kid separately anyway.
Marriage was designed to protect kids by obligating fathers to support them and by extension, their mothers.
It was designed to accommodate the general condition, not every special case under the sun.
Marriage was not designed to be a contract between friends who wish to have a legal entanglement based on mutual sentiment.
Couples should have to draw up and sign contracts specifically stating their financial obligations anyway.
"Gays don't want marriage, what gays want is for society to officially declare that there is nothing wrong with them, that homosexuality is just as normal and desirable as heterosexuality."
Lots of truth in what you say.
When you see otherwise intelligent prosperous people make such a pain in the ass of themselves as to exhaust the patience of the community just for the sake of the use of a word that doesn't confer any tangible benefit over civil union, then you begin to understand why these people were previously shunned into silence.
P. Conderch
No, we have the right to define marriage. To change it for one group with a particular pt. of view is to establish a precedent and ensure that it will be changed again and again... for other groups... and right now, in the opinion of the majority of the country, such a change is not beneficial to the society.
P Coderch said.
"it is none of their business and because it is unconstitutional to grant rights to a part of society but not to another."
Gays have the same right to marry as anyone else in the country as long as they are of the age of consent in their state.
They are asking for the right to make a change which is not the same thing as asking for the "same rights."
Related to this, but Obama has lifted the ban on HIV positive people entering the United States.
nytimes.com
Kurt: I wish that were true, but it clearly isn't. I think it's accurate to say that outside a few places like Cambridge, Amherst, and Provincetown, New England is mainstream liberal rather than crazy leftist, but not conservative.
"Consent of the governed" - something forgotten since at least 1865. --David
Yes, we forget about the genuine consent of the majority of those governed in Mississippi and South Carolina before 1865.
White minority status. An American tradition since 1820.
I think it's accurate to say that outside a few places like Cambridge, Amherst, and Provincetown, New England is mainstream liberal rather than crazy leftist, but not conservative. J Kabala
That depends on how you define "conservative", and how you define "New England".
Three major strains make up N.E., in chronoligical and leftward order: the Puritan-descended, now-irrelevant Yankees; the great mass of unpronounceable "Euro-Americans", Irishmen and Québécois included; and the recently arrived "New Class" of academics, bureaucrats, media and techie types. They tend to think and vote quite differently.
New England was the slowest region to ratify the income tax and Prohibition (blame the Yankees for the former and the Catholics for the latter!), and the most consistent in opposition to Wilson and FDR. Kevin Phillips called it the most conservative seciton of the country, opposing innovations, but attempting to control them once they're in place.
Maine is one of the whitest states, all but 3% white. And half of that must be American Indian-- Maine has the largest indigenous population on the East Coast after New York and North Carolina, if I remember correctly.
That suggests a sister acronym for "NAM": NINCs-- non-indigenous non-Caucasian. How did the Somalis vote on this?
Homosexuals are only 2% of the population.
Now, that 2% tends to be educated, but it's still only 2%
But the thing is, Mr.Sailer, you see, that the only people who should have any say on whether Adam and Steve get married are not voters, they are...Adam and Steve. Frankly, it is not anyone business whether two people join their lives or not, and voters certainly do not have the right to say anything about it. Gay marriage3 is something that doesen't affect anyone but the gay people getting married.
Poor comment.
Gay people can *already* marry; they can "join their lives"; they can make mutual vows in front of witnesses and either keep or break those vows. What the legalization movement is about is forcing the rest of to recognize something we don't want to recognize. Obviously, then, it *does" affect us.
You'd think after 31 no's the gays would accept the wishes of the people. But no they won't.
Come on, it's not like there is a concerted effort by the entire gay population to force this on us. It's a small vocal minority with a lot of outside leadership and funding.
What I find more ironic is that we've spent the last 40 years telling straight people they don't need to marry - to have sex, to shack up, to have children. But who really does need it? The gays!!!
You ever seen "How to Murder Your Wife" (1965)? It's the Frankfurt School in overdrive: don't get married, or if you've already made that mistake go ahead and kill her.
And if gay marriage is really the biggest civil rights issue left then it tells you that there aren't really any civil rights issues left - unless, you know, you start talking about the civil rights of whites.
Good stuff, Jimmy.
Ronduck, you shoulda read the article.
?Under the ban, United States health authorities have been required to list H.I.V. infection as a “communicable disease of public health significance.”
Thanks to Obama, HIV is no longer "a communicable disease of public health significance." He is truly a great man. Now he just needs to makes every other disease go away too.
I have a feeling the AIDS activists didn't think very hard before pushing against the ban. I guess HIV really is just an easily avoidable, fashionable venereal disease.
"But feeling this deficit or being gender atypical as a kid doesn't have to have a psychological etiology--it can be biologically rooted and that then affects the psychological."
That is the real question..the nature v nuture component is yet to be determined.
There is strong evidence that this identity is strongly ingrained by age 2, which is why most gay men will say that they felt different from their earliest memories.
This implies an early etiology but does not mean a total biological cause, only a very very early disruption. Children are blotting paper for influences as soon as they are born.
The biological cause, and associated evolutionary drives are more likely to manifest in the immediate family dynamic.
However what is of interest is not only how homosexuality is caused but what causes heterosexuality? I would like to see some stellar intellects of the punditgentsia applied to this
question .
What causes 95 % of the population to NOT be homosexual?
Can we predict it, can we describe how a default setting is successfully developed in the vast majority of the population?
What are the basic nuts and bolts bonding processes that occur for 95% of us that do not occur for gay people?
Only when we understand this can we understand homosexuality.
If science were to study health as much as it studies dis-ease, would we have a better idea of how children bond and develop their later heterosexual identities?
Call it psychobabble, but we all have psyches, and when they are reasonably healthy we take them for granted.
One day we will see homosexuality as not an entity in itself but merely the state of not being heterosexual.
Farmer F
"Many people think New England is very liberal. However, outside of the Boston metro area, New England is actually quite conservative, especially socially conservative. That the Maine state voters voted down allowing gay marriage does not surprise me."
... and this is in spite of the fact that Maine (along with most of New England out side Boston) is probably the whitest part of the country. In fact, Maine itself is the whitest state in the nation.
By contrast, if San Francisco had a referendum on the topic, voters would overwhelmingly approve gay marriage. This, in spite of the fact that non-hispanic whites are a minority in SF. Contrary to what many on this site believe, racial minorities are not the mortal enemy of social liberalism.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Maine is one of the most secular states in the nation. It's also solidly democratic.
Really, the secular white liberal elites don't have any scapegoats with this one!
Has anybody noticed that 31 referenda, translated into legislatures, would ratify a Constitutional amendment?
Rob said
> Thanks to Obama, HIV is no longer "a communicable disease of public health significance." He is truly a great man. Now he just needs to makes every other disease go away too. <
His health plan makes "the uninsured" go away as well. It says everyone must have health insurance by law. Poof! Another problem solved!
Farmer F said,
"Much as I admire Cochran and Harpending's other ideas, the gay germ theory is an unneccessary over-complication of what is basically a human reparative drive."
Actually, I think the idea of a "reparative drive" is the idea that is overly complicated.
The last decade or so has been one in which we have just begun to accept the notion that bugs are the cause of chronic illnesses and that they can also affect behavior. Think strep, think HPV and uterine cancer as just two examples.) Like Ewald pointed out, it takes time for a whole new generation of researchers who aren't bound to old ideas to get on the right track.
Because most of us can't even begin to wrap our minds around the concept of being attracted to a person of the same gender we have assumed the answer lay in the psychological rather than in the biological.
Anyway, IMHO, it's the "psychological" that I would term the "overly complicated" explanation.
Correction--I meant HPV and cervical cancer (think I typed uterine, but post isn't yet up to check.)
Come on, it's not like there is a concerted effort by the entire gay population to force this on us. It's a small vocal minority with a lot of outside leadership and funding.
Exactly. "Gay marriage" is not actually a gay issue, it's an issue of the cultural left.
And the cultural left is not really very interested in gay marriage as such. They are interested in power for its own sake. They are driving the whole gay marriage cause for "Lets poke a stick in the eye of those squares and show them who's boss here" reasons.
There are a series of implicit association tests at implicit.harvard.edu where you can test yourself for homophobia, racism, ainti-aisan bias, etc. I found that I have no automatic preference between European American and Africian Americian but have a slight bias against gay.
If the Moberly reparative drive theory is true, then bullying, often intended to "make a (straight) man" out of the victim, is instead one of the factors that makes young men gay.
I'll never understand why you folks get so worked up about same-sex marriage.
I get why you oppose taxes, and abortion, and affirmative action, and even antidiscrimination laws and fair housing laws. Each of those at least arguably imposes a cost on someone.
But it doesn't hurt anyone for me to marry my boyfriend. It doesn't reward the promiscuity, riskiness and sexual abandon that you folks think of as "the gay lifestyle" at all -- because getting married is opposed to all of that! My boyfriend and I are monogamous, safe, STD-free, and frankly make more money and pay more taxes than probably 90% of the people posting in this thread (very good law degree and very good PhD between the two of us). And you know what? I know a lot of gay people, and every single gay person I know who wants to get married is similarly restrained and monogamous.
Punishing people like us to spite the sexually promiscuous gay people is like punishing the students who show up to school to spite the students who are cutting class that day. Not only is it nonsensical, it's actually counterproductive -- because it punishes the behavior that you claim to want to encourage!
Anonymous said,
"Punishing people like us ..."
Where's the "punishing"? Civil unions, domestic partnerships, etc. There's no punishing. People just want to keep a word that has meant the union of a man and woman distinguishable from something else.
I'll never understand why you folks get so worked up about same-sex marriage. I get why you oppose taxes, and abortion, and affirmative action, and even antidiscrimination laws and fair housing laws. Each of those at least arguably imposes a cost on someone. But it doesn't hurt anyone for me to marry my boyfriend. It doesn't reward the promiscuity, riskiness and sexual abandon that you folks think of as "the gay lifestyle" at all -- because getting married is opposed to all of that!
Some of us are more worried about how than if: gay marriage imposed by judges, or gay witch hunts against people who contribute to referendums. In Washington State I guess gays were/are even trying to force the state to release the 100,000+ names of those who signed the petition. It's Stalinist.
Truth is that gays don't really even want to marry, and those gay men that dow ill be far less likely to remain mongamous than heterosexual married couples, anyway.
Er, if gays don't really want to marry, then why do so many gay couples get married when it becomes legal to do so?
My impression is that the push for gay marriage is a combination of the desire for overt social acceptance, and the desire for the same easy-to-get bundle of legal rights as straight couples. I think it's fairly hard to get that with civil unions, because they normally don't just plug into all the existing rules and laws and contracts in the same place as marriages, and they mean rather different things in different states.
I wonder if a workable solution there would be a federal civil union statute that defined civil unions as having exact legal equivalence to marriage. This would overcome the reluctance of most Americans to redefine marriage, but would still leave gay couples with the bundle of legal rights they're trying to get.
Polling numbers on this show a slim majority of Americans supporting civil unions now, and among younger voters, I think there's already majority support for gay marriage. So unless something changes (people get more conservative over time, say), I think we'll have gay marriage with popular support in another 20-30 years, barring (say) an activist supreme court that finds some reason in the constitution to forbid it.
I'll admit that I can't think of any major bad effects of this. Lots of long-term gay couples exist now, and their legal arrangements for stuff like pensions and health care and child custody and medical decisions would become much simpler to arrange (and not subject to wildly different interpretations in different states, assuming nationwide gay marriage recognition). I don't see how this harms me or my marriage in the least.
Whiskey!!!!!!!!!
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