Posted on 10/10/2004 3:19:56 PM PDT by schaketo
SAN FRANCISCO - The biggest social issue in this presidential race is the debate over whether gays should be allowed to marry.
Louisiana voters recently tilted 4-to-1 in favor of adding a ban on same-sex marriage to their state constitution, and 71 percent of Missouri voters did the same last month.
Voters in at least nine more states will weigh the question on their ballots in November, and legislation on the question has been introduced in at least 25 states this year.
President Bush supports amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Democratic presidential nominee, doesn't support gay marriage, but he also doesn't favor amending the Constitution to outlaw it.
He thinks states should be free to recognize same-sex civil unions. (Vice President Dick Cheney also has said that he thinks the issue should be left to the states to decide, although he says he defers to the president's position on the issue.)
It's unlikely that concerns about gay marriage run deep enough to swing the presidential election. Rather, most analysts think the election will hinge on a host of issues, including the war in Iraq, the economy and which candidate voters are most comfortable with.
Nevertheless, the issue of gay marriage could motivate voter turnout, particularly in such swing states as Arkansas and Oregon, which have proposals to ban gay marriage on their ballots in November. And as the results from Missouri and Louisiana show, the anti-gay marriage vote is so overwhelming that it could help Republicans overall by drawing more pro-Republican voters to the polls.
"If it is close, anything can matter, and this could matter to some people," said Gary Mucciaroni, a professor of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia.
The gay marriage issue resonates deeply because it challenges a fundamental institution -- marriage. Polls show that Americans believe in equal rights for all citizens, but remain conflicted on whether they want to include same-sex marriage in that equation.
"We're uncomfortable with the idea of challenge to traditional institutions like marriage," said Craig Rimmerman, a professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y. "People are simply uncomfortable with the idea of same-sex marriage. It's a hot-button issue."
Allowing gays to marry implies that "gay relationships are as good as heterosexual relationships," Mucciaroni said. "For a lot of folks that's not the case."
Lou Sheldon, of the Traditional Values Coalition, a lobby made up of more than 43,000 churches, puts it another way.
"The marriage issue is related to a five-letter word: It's called child," he said. "When you put children into the mix, you get a mama-bear reaction."
The debate is fueling a burst of activism on both sides of the issue.
The anti-gay marriage Traditional Values Coalition and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which favors it, each report that donations are pouring in. Many people are volunteering to register like-minded voters and host house parties to underscore the importance of voting in November.
In 2000, the Traditional Values Coalition struggled to rally its churches to get involved in the election.
"It was a drought, it was dry, it was like pulling an oxcart by hand," Sheldon said. "Now I can't keep up with those who've called."
Kate Kendell, the executive director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the gay community is no different from other voters in holding strong concerns about the war in Iraq, health care and terrorism, but Bush's support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is galvanizing them.
"I truly have never seen a more unified nor deeply motivated response in the gay community before," she said. "There were, perhaps, gay or progressive voters who saw Bush as somewhat more benign until his explicit support for a constitutional amendment, and I do know that for some people, that did solidify their opposition."
Steven Fisher, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-gay rights group, said it's not just gays and lesbians who are responding, it's also their friends and families.
"They see this (the drive for a constitutional amendment) as an effort to hurt their friends and family members," Fisher said. "Because of this attack we're seeing Republican families not voting for Bush."
The debate over gay marriage cuts across party and racial lines.
"Polls show that a majority of American oppose gay marriage, so these aren't all Republicans," Mucciaroni said. "It's also an issue that splits African-Americans."
Political scientists say that with gay marriage, Republicans have found an issue that energizes their base but doesn't turn off those who remain undecided about how they'll vote on Nov. 2. And Republicans have been able to frame the debate in a way that's not an attack on individuals, but a defense of traditional marriage.
The courts, too, have become a target for criticism by gay-marriage opponents, who blame "activist judges" for overstepping their bounds by permitting same-sex unions.
"Both sides are trying to focus on an issue that will motivate their voters to get out," said
I (mostly) agree with you. But I have to admit, that I am more Libertarian than Conservative. Nevertheless, the legalization of gay marriages (and for that matter also polygamy) are NOT my priority in my agenda.
As far as consenting adults are concerned, it is neither my business nor the government's to "draw a moral line".
To which the only proper response is: check your premise. It is false. Restrictions on consensual incest, polygamy, polyandry, or even noncontroversial issues such as zoning represent direct restrictions on individual license. But rights aren't license. Those who claim gays have a "right" to "marry" people of their own gender are arguing in favor of a fundamental right which no civilization has recognized since the advent of marriage itself. Hardly a convincing point.
In fact, the argument for gay marriage is fundamentally an argument against civilization, and against the notion of rights that advanced civilizations properly recognize. The elevation of any particular deviancy to the status of normative behavior is an attempt to widen normative behavior so that it becomes meaningless. The elevation of licenses to rights (health care is a right, education is a right, progressive taxation is a right asserted by the poor against the rich, any form of consensual sexual behavior in privacy is a right, ad nauseum) cheapens the things that really are rights.
Our understanding of rights is now so fundamentally diluted that we have Supreme Court Justices holding that there is a "right" to homosexual sodomy, which appears nowhere in the Constitution, but no right to freedom of speech during a political campaign, even though it explicitly appears in one of the most hallowed places of that document.
True. But here's my reasoning: Marriage is a legal contract. And a gay civil union would be a legal contract as well.
I wish it was as simple as that. however, The radical militant homosexual activists are DEMANDING access to churches, schools, youth groups, etc. etc. etc. and their goal is to FORCE society to bow a knee and pander to perversion that the majority does not CONSENT to!
As long as private institutions control their own doors, who cares what opponents of any stripe want? And what the heck are so many children of traditional marriages doing in public schools?
If God blesses your heterosexual marriage, do you really believe that blessing will be weakened by a couple of gays guys down the road regarding themselves as married? Or a polygamous Muslim family? Is your God really neutralized that easily?
How about laws banning polygamy, polyandry, incest, stautory rape and sexual child abuse? Don't those restrict individual rights, too? Do you have a problem with those?
True. It also has genuine conservative foundations as well. They aren't the same.
and it was founded with explicit emphasis on religious liberty
Not really true. Contrary to many postings on FR, many of the founders were infidels. By the the same token, many were very religious. Religious liberty was so important it was largely taken for granted. Madison argued against any inclusion of a Bill of Rights (the only place where religious liberty was formally recognized as beyond the competence of Congress) but caved because of political pressure for ratification. The Country wasn't founded on it. And the question of gay "marriage" isn't a religious one.
It's scary when "conservatives" start thinking that the government is supposed to control our personal lives
Conservatives aren't libertarians, and if you're really interested in what the American founding says about it, you should know that the part of the Bill of Rights regarded as most important by Madison was the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. The Tenth reserves the right to define marriage (or any power not specifically granted to the Federal Government) to the States. Not the people.
Finally, you seem to be thoroughly confused about the legitimate role of government, which most assuredly has been established in many ways to control personal behavior.
If a bunch of weirdos formed a cult based on the advocacy of public elimination with the slogan "Death to Bathroom Doors," and there were enough registered voters as members, Kerry would probably grab a crowbar and hit the trail.
It is within the legitimate authority of government to determine what contracts can be made, and by whom. The exercise of that power belongs in the hands of majoritarian institutions, not courts.
Advocacy of Public Elimination stands for A.P.E.
The family always trumps the individual or dynasties wouldn't be such a large part of history.
If you sleep on the ground, you can't complain about the rocks.
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