Posted on 10/30/2005 1:21:28 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
THE past year has not been very empowering for young adults. Just starting to earn a living and newly eligible to vote, they have witnessed a cavalcade of events beyond their control: disasters in Asia, terrorist bombs in Europe, interminable warfare in the Middle East. At home, officials are under investigation for endangering national security.
Yet even when younger voters have real clout, they tend not to use it. The vote on Proposition 2 on the Nov. 8 ballot, a proposal that would ban gay couples' right to legally protect their families, offers young people a chance to make their influence felt.
Eighteen- to 25-year-olds vote at about half the rate of 45- to 55-year-olds, notes Rice University political scientist Bob Stein. Without home ownership, school districts and careers to worry about, the younger age group doesn't feel driven to participate. What a waste. If 18- to 25-year-olds voted their stated beliefs next month, they could show the country that Texans will not stand for bigotry.
Proposition 2 would amend the Texas Constitution to deny same-sex couples not only the right to marry, but also the right to contract any agreements that offer similar protections. On its face, this is redundant: Same-sex marriage is already illegal in Texas.
Examined closely, the proposition becomes actually ludicrous: the drafters' desire to attack unconventional relationships resulted in a proposal so sloppily written that its wording outlaws "any" compact, including marriage between a woman and man.
This amendment would do serious harm. Suddenly it will be far more difficult for Texans to exercise their wishes if they decide same-sex rights merit further thought. More urgently, the referendum's language — banning anything even "similar" to marriage — in one dismissive sweep jeopardizes the safety of children in Texas' estimated 42,912 gay families.
Raised in a culture with a divorce rate greater than 50 percent, Texas' young adults have no delusion that gay couples threaten traditional marriage. In fact, national polls show that voters under the age of 25 support legal recognition of same-sex relationships by a 3-1 margin. About two out of three voters through their mid-30s support these rights.
This year, young voters can flex an extraordinary amount of muscle. In odd-year elections such as this one, voter turnout is only about 7 percent to 10 percent. Because Texas is a disproportionately youthful state, young voters could come out at twice or three times that proportion and drive Proposition 2 into the ground.
There's not much voters can do about natural calamities, stateless terrorists or dishonest, unelected public officials. But Texas' young voters can exert amazing leverage on the home front next month. They need to vote — and show that hateful legislation is an embarrassment in 21st century Texas.
Eighteen- to 25-year-olds vote at about half the rate of 45- to 55-year-olds
18 to 25 years old people don't have a grip on who they are as individuals, much less what's going on in the world around them.
They're just young and dumb and.............they want some.
I figure fools and idiots like the Houston Chronicle, you don't have to analize these fools and idiots; you just know you are dealing with one.
Utterly amazed at the subterfuge. Now it's a 'family' matter -- 'It's for the children', don'tcha know.
I suppose the phrase, 'I don't want to get married until I can afford a family' is now passe, eh?
Maybe they didn't want to emphasize the word 'marriage' too much. Even homosexuals are hesitant to use the word, knowing the true meaning of it -- and what it implies from moral, legal, social, and religious perspectives.
" . . . offers young people a chance to make their influence felt. If 18- to 25-year-olds voted their stated beliefs next month, they could show the country that Texans will not stand for bigotry."
Clever wording. Now you are a bigot if you don't approve of sexual perversions and don't want them institutionalized by the state.
The writer of this stuff probably gets paid pretty good. It takes a lot of talent to use doublespeak effectively. Up is down and left is right and war is peace.
Ya know, I just feel plain bigoted this morning.
Oh, how terrible! Things happen, and you can't do anything about it? Disempowering!
Unbelieveable demented blither! GROW UP, ALREADY!
(Thank you all, I feel better now.)
STATE Rep. Warren Chisum apparently was surprised when the Ku Klux Klan announced plans to hold a pre-election rally in Austin in support of his constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
He shouldn't have been, because flies are attracted to garbage wherever they may find it.
Chisum, a Republican from Pampa, isn't a cowardly cross-burner who takes delight in bashing African-Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities. But his sponsorship of Proposition 2 on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot offers the KKK another opportunity to do what it does best — promote prejudice and hatred, albeit of a different brand than produced the racial lynchings of not so many years ago.
I am not equating the debate over whether homosexual couples should be allowed to marry to the long, often bloody civil rights struggle of blacks and Hispanics in America.
But the effort to lock a ban on same-sex marriages into the Texas Constitution is prejudicial and hate-provoking and made worse by the fact that it springs from motivations that are primarily political, not legal.
Attracting the public, although unsolicited, endorsement of the Klan, a group synonymous with hate, speaks volumes about the proposal.
Chisum and other public officeholders promoting the proposition, including Gov. Rick Perry, contend it is necessary to "protect" the institution of traditional, heterosexual marriage in our state. Nonsense.
Traditional marriage is under attack from a host of social ills, including poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, narcissism and plain ol' immaturity.
But it is under absolutely no danger from a gay or lesbian couple who wants their commitment to be legally recognized as a marriage.
Even if such governmental intrusion were necessary, which it isn't, Texas already has a law that recognizes only heterosexual marriages.
Adding that restriction to the constitution, which would make it harder to repeal and perhaps help protect the state policy against lawsuits, is the political equivalent of piling-on.
Rather than protecting marriage, the governor and other Proposition 2 promoters are pandering to the large number of Texans, many on the right wing of the Republican Party, who for one reason or another fear or hate homosexuality.
Many Texans who vote for Proposition 2 will be trying to impose their religious beliefs on governmental policy, which is bad enough.
But, even worse, others will be brandishing their prejudices against a minority group, participating in a form of gay-bashing that, in effect, is being sanctioned by the highest levels of state government.
Small wonder that the Klan decided to come buzzing in for an anti-homosexual marriage rally a few days before the election. Hate fests are its kind of party.
A spokesman for this particular Klan group, the Texas arm of the American White Knights, said the group doesn't wear robes or hoods in public and doesn't shout racial obscenities. No amount of prettying up, though, will remove the stench of intolerance.
Meanwhile, arms flailing in the air, Chisum is trying to put as much distance between himself and the Klan event as possible.
"I have absolutely nothing to do with it," he told Houston Chronicle reporter Polly Ross Hughes.
"I didn't ask them to come and do this, and they're doing it on their own — not with my approval."
I am sure a Klan rally was one of the last things that Chisum wanted before Election Day. But when you play footsie with prejudice, you risk stepping into something disgusting.
Robison is chief of the Chronicle's Austin Bureau. (clay.robison@chron.com)
I find it interesting that the same people that claim to be against judicial activism are at the same time practicing it. With this SC I wouldn't take a chance on this gettting there.
The Socialist must be getting a bang out of conservs, pushing the leftist agenda. Anyone that thinks they can get a law passed that ONLY applies to "gays" are somking funny cigs.
Gay marriage ballots in 2004 - From Exit polls
Arkansas: Voters 18-29 - 65-30 Yes, 75-25 overall
Georgia:
Voters 18-29 - 72-28 Yes, 76-24 overall
Kentucky:
Voters 18-29 - 68-32 Yes, 75-25 overall
Michigan:
Voters 18-29 - 51-49 Yes, 59-41 overall
Mississippi
Voters 18-29 - 83-17 Yes, 86-14 overall
Montana
Voters 18-29 - 57-43 Yes, 67-33 overall
North Dakota
Voters 18-29 - 60-40 Yes, 73-27 overall
Ohio
Voters 18-29 - 51-49 Yes, 62-38 overall
Oklahoma:
Voters 18-29 - 70-30 Yes, 76-24 overall
Oregon:
Voters 18-29 - 44-56 NO, 57-43 overall
This young voter doesn't give a damn what gays do in their home, but doesn't want his tax money paying for their "domestic benefits".
Marriage ain't a right.
Text of the 9 Texas propositions, argument for and against.
(pdf format)
Tab down to "Please Remember to Vote During Early Voting"
for the link.
http://www.freemarket.org/portal/index.php
VOTING DATES
October 24-Nov.4 Early Voting
Nov. 8 Election Day
Even the USSC would have problems juggling it around, as it must use words in their opinions and decisions that are already defined.
I'm at a loss to understand how the Mass. Supreme Court ever got away with re-defining the word, marriage. Very bad precedent. In fact, an ominous one.
The good news is that less than 5% of 18 to 25 year olds read newspapers. And less than half of those 5% care what the Houston Comical thinks about anything, especially Prop. 2.
US Constitution, Article 1 Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
Looks to me like the Constitution prohibits states from making law impairing the obligation of contracts, and since this proposition is state law it seems to me that there might be a problem.
That is with OTHER COUNTRIES. Now let's take it back to INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS. Thanks :)
Oh, I forgot...try Article IV of the Constitution. It might take you closer to what you might be interested in but not to the extent of contractual agreements among individuals. This is where the Founders wrote about Full faith and credit shall be given by each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. One more thing, do you honestly think Federalism is dead? :)
BIG BARF ALERT!
Oh don't worry the lefties have plenty of tricks up their sleaves. Contracts would become worthless and there goes the capitalist society.
Actually, I've seen it used LOTS of different ways by people on both sides of the coin to fit their political beliefs.
What ass hat penned their name to this?
I think it was one of those butt caps.
was bitter leftist tirades about how anyone who disagreed with them was a bigot.
That's what some of the more extreme neocons say here. One of these days I'm going to move to an area where I can take on liberals.
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