Posted on 10/28/2008 6:33:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If Prop. 8 wins, Newsom will be scapegoated. But the recriminations should focus on Ronald George.
I voted against Proposition 8, just as I voted against Proposition 22 in 2000, on equality-under-the-law grounds. I hope the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment fails on Tuesday.
But I'm increasingly beginning to suspect it will pass. Backers have mounted a shrewdly framed TV ad campaign that doesn't have the harsh edge many expected from die-hard opponents of gay marriage. Its focus on the possibility that school kids might be taught about gay marriage has touched a chord among parents. (No, I don't think this claim is preposterous, given how our legal and education communities work. I just don't find the prospect particularly scary.)
Prop. 8's odds have also been greatly increased by vast donations pouring in from the country from cultural and religious conservatives who see the fight as pivotal to preventing gay marriage becoming the norm around the nation and even the world. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told The New York Times that Prop. 8 was "more important than the presidential election."
So the stakes are high -- and the recriminations will be intense if Prop. 8 succeeds. I think San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will be haunted forever by his braying, arrogant soundbite after the May state Supreme Court ruling declaring gay marriage legal in California: "The door's wide-open now. It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not!" It was off-the-charts smart for the pro-8 forces to replay the clip over and over in their ads.
For my money, though, any recriminations should focus on California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George. This state was gradually moving toward a gay-marriage consensus. But it just wasn't there yet when George, in his own way, declared it's gonna happen, whether you like it or not.
I found George's legal reasoning to be sound and persuasive. But given his past moderation and unadventurousness, his decisive vote to impose gay marriage on California was deeply uncharacteristic. It may well have been principled. Yet given George's history, it looks far more like posturing for the history books than anything else.
There's a lot of that going on around at the highest levels of state government. The guy at the top of the executive branch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) hunted for global acclaim by signing sweeping, unprecedented climate-change legislation and by pushing a sweeping, unprecedented (and plainly illegal) health insurance mandate. The guy who used to be the most powerful leader of the legislative branch (Fabian Nunez) hunted for the same acclaim by working with Arnold on both his crusades.
This spring, it was the guy at the top of the state judicial branch's chance to bask in global acclaim -- and Ron George jumped at the opportunity. But he may have hurt the cause of gay marriage far more than he helped it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
That "call to reason" is hypocrisy personified.
The attempt at moral equivalency fails on every imagineable grounds.
"Conservative" extremists, so-called, are run to ground and executed where appropriate, they do not commit wholesale damage and physical intimidation without swiftly paying a price. The demand for such comes first and most emphatically from the conservative themselves. No one is above the law.
Liberalism is first and most noticeably engaged in damage control, excuses and pretending that it's all the same.
I am underwhelmed.
Under the circumstances of the last decade or more, it is quite easy and appropriate to judge the whole silent group of liberals by the behavior of their destructive foot-soldiers.
Point me to the liberal, "progressive" rage at the excesses of their militants.
Your thinking is a revelation to me Nick....I’m in Michigan but feel very strongly that the State of California has an absolute constitutional obligation to provide me with a free car. A nice big one. And free gas. That’s my pursuit of happiness...
(If i lived in CA I would 100% support prop 8. If liberal “jurists” didn’t keep discovering “rights” that us commoners can’t see in State and Federal constitutions it wouldn’t be necessary to spell it out for them on tablets of stone.)
Ah then, you allow that the "pursuit of happiness" can rationally have boundaries and/or constraints?
The question then becomes, who should decide?
The perverts? or the vastly overwhelming normal majority?
That's what Prop 8 is intended to answer. We all (at least the adults) already know that boundaries and constraints are essential for a normal society to remain healthy.
Ah the pervert card. And you decided someone is a pervert and can thus not be married? Who let you decide that?
What right to you have to vote to restrict the right of other adult citizens? What other rights are you willing to subject to a vote or are we just keeping perverts in their place?
So you think we should confiscate other people’s money and buy you a car. What logical hoop did you jump through to equate forcing money from someone else to two people consenting to get married?
No one is using moral equivalency. I said that the exercise of a right by some may be a sin to others. You can call pervert or sinner all you want. The point is it’s their right. Just as you have the right to call it what you want. Since they didn’t harm or force you, what right do you have to call for a restriction of the behavior. Shall we outlaw all things you or the majority consider sins or immoral.
If few gays get married then what’s your problem with gay marriage?
Do you really want to invoke the historical arguments. Shall we make a list of things which were acceptable or not for centuries and then they were outlawed or made legal?
Another illogical proposition.
Shall we have a sterility exam for the 60 year olds who want to marry and live together the rest of their lives or should we tell them, sorry, no children?
In case you've pulled a Rip Van Winkle the last 20 years, many lesbians have had children and other homosexuals have adotped. So will you let them marry for the children?
Has nothing to do with gay marriage. Some would argue that being married reduces sexual activity over the long haul : ) and may decrease promiscuity.
And how will gay marriage effect others?
I will agree to a treaty. If gay marraige attacks your marriage, my wife and I will run over and help you fight it off. And you do the same for us.
I don't believe in opposing anything. I believe in human rights.
If you can't accept the rights of others, that's not being imposed upon, it's just not understanding that you have no right to restrict others in the exercise of their rights.
Learning that lesson may feel like an imposition to you, but the point of exercising their right is they agree it and you are not effected, unless they're forcing you to be in the wedding.
if you don't like it, don't ride the bus.
I didn’t think a sarcasm tag was absolutely necessary for that joke but....
You're comment, while a nice try, indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of liberty.
Sorry!
Some one has to stand up and yell stop. If it's arrogant to stand up for the exercise of rights, then I plead guilty.
If it passes, then smart Heterosexuals will forgo having the state sanction their union, get powers of attorney, and have a clergyman seal the deal before god. It’d be great revenge on the state, denying them the elevated tax brackets that married couples give them.
Additionally, if one was willing to suck up a little embarassment, one could “state marry” the parent of their actual religiously wed spouse and that way when the parent kicked off they could recieve the estate of the parent free and clear as a “surviving spouse” rather than being porked by the state for up to half of the deceaseds hard earned wealth.
That may sound stupid, but if your estate is worth more than 2 or 3 million bucks it’s a damn good idea for keeping the money out of the hands of crooks...
Make sure to ping when you master the art of the coherent sentence too, eh?
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