Defense of Marriage Amendment debate on CSPAN2 LIVE THREAD

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[abnegation]

And so it begins.....

[abnegation]

Hatch is right.....Further Left and the Swimmers State is choosing this issue for the rest of us....Time for this issue to come to the forefront and be discussed.

[tjwmason]

Can't believe Hatch has on that ugly pink tie either.

I think that the term is 'splendid irony'.

[goldstategop]

The dilemma is most acute for Democratic Senators from Red States.

[Bahbah]

Hatch: Activists judges are increasingly making it impossible for states to decide for themselves. Hatch has gone after Kerry and the liberal media. He may be a weenie, but not at this time.

[Mo1]

LOL .. wonder if they are hoping for another delay in the vote

[EternalVigilance]

That wasn't my point, and you know it.

I got your point loud and clear, as did everyone else around here.

My equation was actually between people who thought it was morally correct to discriminate according to skin color, and people who think it is morally ok to discriminate according to sexual orientation.

A skunk still smells like a skunk, no matter how hard you try to spin the stench as smelling like roses.

In other words, I was saying that bigots then were like bigots today.

You're the bigot.

You're bigoted against the values that this country was built upon, and those who continue to champion those values.

That much is abundantly clear from your idiotic comments.

[lugsoul]

Judicial activism on the courts trends away from the course of legislative activity.

Can we agree on a few simple, conservative principles?

1) - Judicial activism is bad, whether liberal or conservative.

2) - Amendments to the U.S. Constitution should be kept to a minimum.

3) - We shouldn't involve the Constitution in political gamesmanship.

If you agree with these basic principles and revere the Constitution, there is no way you should support this amendment. Not yet, anyway.

[squarebarb]

you called?

[OXENinFLA]

Yeah this is kinda long but well worth the read.....




THE DEFICIT OF DECENCY -- (Senate - February 12, 2004)

[Page: S1271] GPO's PDF

---

Mr. MILLER. The Old Testament prophet, Amos, was a sheep herder who lived back in the Judean hills, away from the larger cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Compared to the intellectual urbanites like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Amos was just an unsophisticated country hick. But Amos had a unique grasp of political and social issues, and his poetic literary skill was among the best of all the prophets.

That familiar quote of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Justice will rush down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. .....

Those are Amos's words.

Amos was the first to propose the concept of a universal God and not just some tribal deity. He also wrote that God demanded moral purity, not rituals and sacrifices.

This blunt-speaking moral conscience of his time warns, in Chapter 8, verse 11 of the Book of Amos, as if he were speaking to us today:

The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

``A famine in the land,'' has anyone more accurately described the situation we face in America today? A famine of ``hearing the word of the Lord.'' Some will say Amos was just an Old Testament prophet who lived 700 years before Christ.

That is true. So how about one of the most influential historians of modern times, Arnold Toynbee, who wrote the acclaimed 12-volume ``A Study of History.'' He once declared:

Of the 22 civilizations that have appeared in history, 19 of them have collapsed when they reached the moral state America is in today.

Toynbee died in 1975, before seeing the worst that was yet to come. Yes, Arnold Toynbee saw the famine, ``the famine of hearing the word of the Lord,'' whether it is removing a display of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse or of a nativity scene from a city square, whether it is eliminating prayer in the city schools or eliminating ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance, whether it is making a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage between a man and a woman, or, yes, telecasting around the world made-in-the-USA filth masquerading as entertainment.

The culture of far left America was displayed in a startling way during the Super Bowl's now infamous half-time show, a show brought to us on behalf of the Value-Les Moonves and the pagan temple of Viacom-Babylon.

I asked the question yesterday: How many of you have ever run over a skunk with your car? I know the President has, somewhere over there around Frog Hollow. I have, many times. I can tell you that the stink stays around for a long time. You can take the car through a carwash and it is still there. So the scent of this event will long linger in the nostrils of America.

I am not talking just about an exposed mammary gland with a pull-tab attached to it. Really, no one should have been too surprised with that. Wouldn't you expect a bumping, humping, trashy routine entitled ``I'm Going To Get You Naked'' to end that way?

Does any responsible adult ever listen to the words of this rap-crap? I would quote you some of it, but the Sergeant at Arms would throw me out of this Chamber, as well he should.

Then there was that prancing, dancing, strutting, rutting guy, evidently suffering from jock itch because he kept yelling and grabbing his crotch. But, then, maybe there is a culture of crotch grabbing in this country I don't know about. But as bad as all that was, the thing that yanked my chain the hardest was seeing this ignoramus with his pointed head stuck up through a hole he had cut in the flag of the United States of America, screaming about having ``a bottle of scotch and watching lots of crotch.''

Think about that. This is the same flag to which we pledge allegiance. This is the same flag that is draped over coffins of dead young uniformed warriors, killed while protecting Kid Crock's boney butt. He should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of this country on a rail. You talk about a good reality show? That would be one.

The desire and will of this Congress to meaningfully do anything about any of these so-called social issues is nonexistent and embarrassingly disgraceful. The American people are waiting and growing impatient with us. They want something done.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 26, along with Senator Allard and others, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage ; and S. 1558, the Liberties Restoration Act, which declares religious liberty rights in several ways, including the Pledge of Allegiance and the display of the Ten Commandments.

Today, I join Senator Shelby and others with the Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 that limits the jurisdiction of Federal courts in certain ways.

In doing so, I stand shoulder to shoulder, not only with my Senate cosponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, but more importantly with our Founding Fathers in the conception of religious liberty and the terribly wrong direction our modern judiciary has taken us.

Everyone today seems to think the U.S. Constitution expressly provides for separation of church and state. I guess you could ask any 10 people if

[Page: S1272] GPO's PDF

that is not so and I will bet you most of them will say, well, sure that is so. And some would point out that is in the First Amendment.

Wrong. Read it. It says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Where is the word ``separate''? Where are the words ``church'' and ``state''? They are not there; never have been, never intended to be. Read the Congressional Record during the 4-month period in 1789 when the amendment was being framed in Congress. Clearly their intent was to prohibit a single denomination in exclusion of all others, whether it was anglican or Catholic or some other.

I highly recommend a great book entitled Original Intent by David Barton.

It really gets into how the actual Members of Congress, who drafted the First Amendment, expected basic Biblical principles and values to be present throughout public life and society, not separate from it.

It was Alexander Hamilton who pointed out that ``judges should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty.''

``Bound down.'' That is exactly what is needed to be done. There was not a single precedent cited when school prayer was struck down in 1962.

These judges who legislate instead of adjudicate do it without being responsible to one single solitary voter for their actions.

Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a brilliant young physician from Pennsylvania named Benjamin Rush.

When Rush was elected to that First Continental Congress, his close friend Benjamin Franklin told him ``We need you ..... we have a great task before us, assigned to us by Providence.''

Today, 228 years later there is still a great task before us assigned to us by Providence. Our Founding Fathers did not shirk their duty and we can do no less.

By the way, Benjamin Rush was once asked a question that has long interested this Senator from Georgia in particular. Dr. Rush was asked, Are you a democrat or an aristocrat? And the good doctor answered, ``I am neither''. ``I am a Christocrat. I believe He, alone, who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.''

That reply of Benjamin Rush is just as true today in the year of our Lord 2004 as it was in the year of our Lord 1776.

So, if I am asked why--with all the pressing problems this Nation faces today--why am I pushing these social issues and taking the Senate's valuable time, I will answer: Because, it is of the highest importance. Yes, there is a deficit to be concerned about in this country, a deficit of decency.

So, as the sand empties through my hourglass at warp speed--and with my time running out in this Senate and on this Earth--I feel compelled to speak out for I truly believe that at times like this, silence is not golden. It is yellow.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to compliment the Senator from Georgia, Senator Miller, for his statement and for his outrage over some of the decline in morality which was evidenced by not only by Super Bowl halftime but also by the Supreme Court decision just made in the State of Massachusetts where basically four individuals tried to legalize same-sex marriage . It was not a vote of the people.

[abnegation]

Hatch knows in Utah which way the wind blows on this issue.

[goldstategop]

The values of Uncle Ted and John F*ckin's home state.

[Bahbah]

"1) - Judicial activism is bad, whether liberal or conservative. Agreed!

2) - Amendments to the U.S. Constitution should be kept to a minimum. Agreed, but not necessarily to zero.

3) - We shouldn't involve the Constitution in political gamesmanship. There may be some political gamesmanship going on here, but to many this is a critical issue, and many of us are not politicians.

[lugsoul]

Or maybe they simply believe in doing things the right way. I don't believe in gay marriage - but, then again, I don't necessarily believe in "civil" marriage, either. But I think this proposed amendment is a horror. It debases the Constitution and tramples the vestiges of federalism. And my opposition to it has nothing to do with how I feel about "gay marriage."

[johnmorris886]

For those who are interested here is just a FEW of the MANY studies that have been done that show homosexuality is not "fixed and unchangeable" and that Homosexuals CAN and DO change.

It is a BEHAVIOR not a CHOICE.

Joseph Berger
American Journal of Psychotherapy, 48(2), 251-261, (1994).

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6(3), 355-366, 1973.

Irving Bieber, Harvey J. Dain, Paul R. Dince, Marvin G. Drellich, Henry G. Grand, Ralph H. Gundlach, Malvina W. Kremer, Alfred H. Rifkin, Cornelia B. Wilbur, Toby B. Bieber.
Homosexuality: a Psychoanalytic Study. New York: Basic Books, 1962.


In Homosexual Behavior: A Modern Reappraisal. Judd Marmor (Editor). New York: Basic Books, 1980. Pages 376-390.


Edward J. Callahan
Counseling Methods. John D. Krumboltz and Carl E. Thoresen, Eds. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. Pages 234 - 245.


Alejandro Cantón-Dutari
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 3(4), 367-371, 1974.


Albert Ellis
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 15, 338-343. (1959)


J.A. Hadfield
British Medical Journal, June 7, 1958, 1323-1326.


Lawrence J. Hatterer
Changing Homosexuality in the Male. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1970.


Harvey E. Kaye, Soll Berl, Jack Clare, Mary R. Eleston, Benjamin S. Gershwin, Patricia Gershwin, Leonard S. Kogan, Clara Torda, and Cornelia B. Wilbur.
Archives of General Psychiatry, 17, 626-634 (November 1967).


Jay L. Liss & Amos Welner
American Journal of Psychotherapy, 27(1), 102-104, (1973).


William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson
Homosexuality in Perspective. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.


Peter Mayerson & Harold I. Lief
In Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality. Judd Marmor (Editor). New York: Basic Books, 1965. Pages 302-344.


Joseph Wolpe, M.D.
The Practice of Behavior Therapy. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1969. Pages 255-262. This case is described in less detail in Stevenson and Wolpe (1960); the 1969 book was chosen as it was cited by Nicolosi.


Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg
On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1986. See pages 195-204 and 252-258 in particular.


Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33(3), 249-259 (2002).


Roberta Ann Shechter
International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 1, 197-201, (1992).


Further here is a small debunking of the Gene myth that the sodomites keep spewing.

The "Homosexual Gene" is a media created myth. As new research studies were published, the popular press presented these as evidence that people are "born gay" and that sexual orientation is therefore unchangable. What has been quietly happening, though, is that the "science" behind this idea is falling apart. Here we briefly examine the three most cited studies, from Simon LeVay, Michael Bailey & Richard Pillard, and Dean Hamer.

---

Simon LeVay and the INAH-3

"Time and again I have been described as someone who 'proved that homosexuality is genetic' ... I did not."

Simon LeVay in The Sexual Brain, p. 122.

Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist, studied the brains from 41 corpses, including 6 women, 19 homosexual men, and 16 men presumed to be heterosexual. A small area of the brain, the INAH-3, was similar in size in women and homosexual men, but larger in heterosexual men. He suggested that this might be evidence for an actual structural difference in the brains of gay men. There are, however, numerous problems with this study:


The points on the graph represent the size of INAH-3 in the brains from corpses of 6 women (F), 16 men (M; presumably heterosexual) and 19 homosexual men (HM)
In comparing the size of the INAH-3, he presumed that the 16 "heterosexual" men were, in fact, heterosexual. Only two of them had denied homosexual activities; for the rest, sexual histories were not available. Thus, he was actually comparing homosexual men with men of unknown sexual orientation! This, obviously, is a major flaw in scientific method.
The volume of the INAH-3 may not be a relevant measure:
Scientists disagree on the most accurate way to measure the INAH-3. LeVay measured the volume; other scientists claim it is more accurate to measure the actual number of neurons. Clarifying the potential problem, some have suggested that using a volume method to project impact on sexual orientation may be like trying to determine intelligence by a person's hat size.
When different laboratories have measured the four areas of the INAH (including INAH-3), their results conflicted. For example, Swaab and Fliers (1985) found that the INAH-1 was larger in men, while LeVay (1991) found no difference between men and women. Allen et al (1989) found the INAH-2 to be larger in men than in some women, while LeVay (1991) again found no difference. See Byne (1994), page 52.


The above problems aside, even the data from LeVay's study did not prove that anyone was born gay. This is the case for at least two reasons:

Both groups of men covered essentially the same range of sizes. One could be gay (HM) with a small INAH-3 or with a large one. One could also be in the "heterosexual" category (M) with either a small or large INAH-3. Clearly, these men were not held to a sexual orientation by their INAH-3 biology! As the data shows, the INAH-3 size of three of the homosexual men puts them clearly in the "heterosexual" category (with one having the second largest INAH-3!). If all you know about any of LeVay's subjects is INAH-3 size, you could not accurately predict whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, male or female.
A study that showed a clear difference in INAH-3 sizes, would still leave another question unanswered: are men gay because of a smaller INAH-3, or was their INAH-3 smaller because of their homosexual actions, thoughts, and/or feelings? It is known that the brain does change in response to changes in behaviour and environment. For example, Newsweek reported that "in people reading Braille after becoming blind, the area of the brain controlling the reading finger grew larger." As well, in male songbirds, "the brain area associated with mating is not only larger than in the female, but varies according to the season" (Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1992, p. 50).

---

Bailey & Pillard: Twins and Other Brothers

Bailey and Pillard studied pairs of brothers -- identical twins, non-identical twins, other biological brothers, and adoptive brothers -- where at least one was gay. At first glance, their findings looked like a pattern for homosexuality being genetically influenced. Identical twins were both homosexual 52% of the time; non-identical twins, 22%; other biological brothers, 9.2%; and adoptive brothers, 10.5%. A closer look reveals significant problems with a "born gay" conclusion to this study:

"In order for such a study to be meaningful, you'd have to look at twins raised apart," says Anne Fausto Sterling, a biologist. The brothers in this study were raised together in their families.
All the results were different from what one would expect if homosexuality was directly genetic:
Because identical twin brothers share 100% of their genes overall, we would expect that if one was homosexual, the other would also be homosexual, 100% of the time. Instead, this study found that they were both homosexual only 52% of the time.
Although completely unrelated genetically, adoptive brothers were more likely to both be gay than the biological brothers, who share half their genes! This piece of data prompted the journal Science to respond: "this . . . suggests that there is no genetic component, but rather an environmental component shared in families" (Vol. 262 Dec.24, 1993).
If homosexuality were genetic, one would expect each number in the column "Results from the B & P study" to be identical to the corresponding number in the "Expectation if genetic" column. Each one is significantly different!
Both are Homosexual:
Shared genes
(overall) Expectation
if genetic Results from
B&P study
Identical twin brothers 100 % 100 % 52 %
Non-ident. twin brothers 50 % 50 % 22 %
Other biological brothers 50 % 50 % 9 %
Adoptive brothers 0 % 1-4 % 11 %

Finally, Bailey & Pillard did not use a random sample. The men in the study were recruited through advertisements in gay newspapers and magazines.

---

Dean Hamer and the Xq28 Genetic Markers

Hamer studied 40 pairs of homosexual brothers, and reported that 33 pairs shared a set of five genetic markers. Reporting the story, Time magazine's cover read "BORN GAY Science Finds a Genetic Link" (July 26, 1993). Hamer, however, was more cautious. He felt that it played "some role" in a minority of 5 to 30% of gay men (The Science of Desire by Dean Hamer and Peter Copeland. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Pages 145-146). This is a rather distant reality from finding the "gay gene" and it left two critical questions: just how much influence was "some role" thought to be, and what about the other 70 to 95%?


Based on a simple genetic theory, one would expect 50%, or 20 pairs, to have the same markers. Why did 7 pairs of gay brothers not share a set of genetic markers?
Hamer did not check to see if the heterosexual brothers of the homosexual men also had such a genetic marker. Thus, there was no control group in this study. Here too, this obviously is a major flaw in scientific method.
Since that time, Science has reported that George Ebers, a researcher at the University of Western Ontario, has attempted to duplicate the study but found "no evidence, not even a trend," for the "genetic link." In the scientific world, that is a big problem. More recently, another study by Rice et al. has also stated that its results "do not support an X-linked gene underlying male homosexuality."


Furthermore, when researches took at look at the studies done by Dr. Dean Hamer they not only found that they couldn't duplicate his results at all, evidence has surfaced that indicates that he falsified data to get his desired results, (He is an open homosexual).

---

But with hardly anyone noticing, Hamer's claims have unraveled. A replication of his study at the University of Western Ontario failed to find any linkage whatsoever between the X chromosome and sexual orientation. And in a follow-up, on which Hamer himself collaborated, a linkage was again found, but it was so statistically insignificant that one of the authors acknowledges that, had this study come first, it would never have been published.

But more seriously, fraud has emerged as a possible explanation for these discrepancies. Hamer is in the midst of a confidential, federal investigation over allegations by a junior researcher in his laboratory that he cooked his data to distort the evidence for a "gay gene" in the first place. The allegation that Hamer selectively reported his data was made in June 1994 by a researcher at his lab who assisted in the gene mapping in the homosexuality study. She isn't talking to the press, but associates tell the Chicago Tribune, which broke the story this past June, that she was unaware of the problems at the time the article was published almost a year earlier. Around the time she made her claims known, she was summarily dismissed from her post-doctoral fellowship in Hamer's lab. It is not known who dismissed her, but a National Institutes of Health investigation found her claims substantial enough to refer the matter to the next investigative level, and gave her another position in a different lab. That investigation, conducted by the federal Office of Research Integrity is handled secretly until their findings are finalized. But researchers familiar with the matter say the inquiry has been ongoing since January. Hamer is not talking to the press.

---

Now even the homosexual and pro-homosexual press are acknowledging the problems. In her 1996 book, Gender Shock, writer and lesbian woman Phyllis Burke, quoting Dr. Paul Billings, an internist and human geneticist, calls the born gay idea "a new fish story." A gay publication, "The Guide," writes Hamer's story under the title "Gene Scam?"

[OXENinFLA]

The way Reid was talking it sounded like he was worried that K/E would miss this vote if it interfere w/ their campaign events.

[goldstategop]

Actually the FMA would preserve federalism by leaving the issue of civil unions up to the state legislature. I can't think of anything more pro-state's rights. But to hear the Democrats talk, to trust the representatives of the people is to slide down into despotism.

[IamConservative]

Why do gays want to marry?

So they can pay higher taxes due the marriage penalty! (when the tax cuts expire.)

[sr4402]

Homosexuality is an orientation, not a "behavior" or a "choice."

Sorry, the study was not reproducible and violated basic research standards. People choose this so called lifestyle and the results thereof. When a man leaves his kids and wife for another man, the results are devastating. The results of this may last for generations.

When folks are young, they think they are immortal and invulnerable. They think can do anything and get away with it. Unfortunately the results of this choice may take years to see and often with many tears that cannot be erased.

This is about whether society wants children to have their parents (a Mommy and a Daddy). Our society is trying to throw their children away once more. May Almighty God intervene and show the depravity of adulterating marriage and leaving his commands.

[goldstategop]

The Democrats can't bear to be kept away from the campaign trail. <sarcasm

[finnigan2]

I would agree that a federal amendment is not required if it weren't for the fact that if only one state allowed homosexual marriage, it would then force ALL states to recognize it. However, we both know that gays will be traveling to that state in droves, getting "married" and then going back home to initiate ACLU backed court action to force their own state to recognize that their marriage certificate must be accepted. After all, can you imagine the legal mess if some states recognized divorce while others did not? That's why if you want to stop the gay marriage express, it has to be a federal amendment.