Posted on 07/30/2002 9:09:34 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Due Process Is Dead in Massachusetts.
“It being the public policy of this Commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage in order to promote, among other goals, the stability and welfare of society and the best interests of children, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts. Any other relationship shall not be recognized as a marriage or its legal equivalent, nor shall it receive the benefits or incidents exclusive to marriage from the Commonwealth, its agencies, departments, authorities, commissions, offices, officials and political subdivisions. Nothing herein shall be construed to effect an impairment of a contract in existence as of the effective date of this amendment.”
For the last week, I have been reeling with images from the July 17th travesty in the Massachusetts state house, when a special constitutional convention met for the third time in as many months to consider a proposed amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Senate president Tom Birmingham (who is running a dwindling campaign for governor of this state) had said earlier in the week and again that morning that he was going to do “everything in my power to stop this mean-spirited and hateful issue from coming to a vote.” This time, he got someone else to do his dirty work: Brian P. Lees (R-Springfield), the senate minority leader, moved to adjourn the meeting before the amendment could be addressed. 137 members voted to adjourn; 53 voted not to adjourn. Fifty votes were required to carry the issue of the Amendment to the ballot—which obviously could have carried easily, leaving the question of what a marriage is—or is not—up to the voters of this state in 2004.
More than 130,000 voters signed the Protection of Marriage Amendment petition in the fall of 2001. 76,607 of those signatures were certified. 57,100 certified signatures were required in order for the petition to come before the constitutional convention. According to the Massachusetts Family Institute, 83% of Massachusetts voters polled agree that marriage is important to the family, and 60% support defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
On July 17th, I went to the state house to be present for (I presumed) an historic vote. Before I went into the State House, I stood for about a half hour with about sixty staff and volunteers for the Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage for a nearly silent rally. Some of us stood and chatted and others held up signs that said, “Let the People Vote for Marriage in 2004.” And most of us watched somewhat warily as homosexuals and lesbians harassed members of our group. At around 1:15, I went into the State House.
I couldn´t get near the gallery. The doors were closed until about 1:50, but there must have been 750 people in the house chamber area ahead of me, perhaps 250 pro-homosexual rights supporters to the rest of us who favor traditional values. The senators entered the chamber at 2:00 pm. At 2:17, they strolled out with smug smirks on their faces. Opponents of the amendment erupted into cheers, and the rest of us into boos and hisses. Almost immediately, there was a frenzy of sympathetic media interviews with lesbian members of the Massachusetts congress, and their supporters—and then the taunting and jeering began. The Marriage Amendment, for all intents and purposes, was dead. And we all knew it.
The only pro-marriage supporter I know of who made it onto the news that night was a black woman who took issue with a sign that pronounced, “We want OUR civil rights!” When she challenged that statement and was verbally assaulted, she lost her temper and was ushered out of the building by armed guards. The whole episode was filmed; what made it onto the news that evening was the woman being taken out, loud with rage, her little boys in tow. Some of us were standing outside the capitol afterward, pondering the whole mess as we waited for busses to take us back to the places where we had gathered for this momentous day. A homosexual came along and began reviling us. We were silent in response. He then sighted the black woman and got very in-your-face with her, his nose possibly a foot away from hers. He spoke in low, seething tones. We could not hear him, but her demeanor made it pretty obvious that he was being extremely unpleasant to her. The busses came along and the woman and her children crossed Beacon Street—and he walked beside her, puffing smoke into her face and muttering at her the entire time. None of us (including I, shamefully) did anything to try to stop him.
My own involvement with the Protection of Marriage Amendment began when I signed the petition at my local grocery store last fall. I asked for copies and carried them around with me to collect more signatures, rather surprised at how many people were willing to sign it. Very few I asked did not.
After the first constitutional convention met on May 8th of this year to discuss the Amendment, as required by the Massachusetts Constitution, and then closed without a vote, a friend who works for Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage called and asked if I would contact the voters in my town who had signed the petition, and ask them to contact our state senator and representative in support of the Amendment. I said yes, and began calling a few days later. Again, I was amazed at the responses: about a third of those I spoke to, while they had signed the petition, were reluctant to call Ms Walrath or Mr. Antonioni. They expressed concerns about voicing their opinions on such a “controversial” matter to their elected officials. The other two-thirds assured me that they would.
On June 19th, the date of the next special constitutional convention to consider the Marriage Amendment, I took a few hours of personal time from work and met my friend at the State House for the vote. When I arrived at the Boston Common, the meeting place for volunteers from the Mass Citizens for Marriage, I was surprised that there weren´t more people there, including, apparently, members of the opposition. I was told that my friend was already inside, so I hurried through the security area into the State House and went to the House gallery where she and her two little sons, aged two and five, were waiting. I sat down next to them.
It was about 1:15. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 2:00.
Although there was one kind guard in the gallery, as we waited for the vote, some of the other guards became verbally abusive. One woman guard in particular was unkind to an MCM staff member seated in front of me. The guard poked her shoulder to get attention, and poked it so hard that the woman winced and rubbed it as she turned to her. The guard spoke provokingly to her, threatening to remove her if she distributed any badges, and then said that she must remove the bag of badges or be ejected from the gallery. After a moment of discussion, a male guard joined them, the staff member said she would not distribute anything (she had not done so to that point) and the guards withdrew. [Most of us in the gallery were already wearing the badges, which said only, “Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage.”]
My friend seemed uncharacteristically quiet and when I asked why, told me of an incident that had just happened to a friend of hers as she was walking into the state house. A group of homosexuals and lesbians approached and began threatening her and the others with her, tormenting them with anti-religious slurs. The attempts met with no response. One of the activists then centered on her and tried more aggressively to get her to respond, verbally abusing her until she was in tears. When she said nothing, the activist spat, “I hope your children choke and die in front of you!”
And we´re called “mean-spirited and hateful?”
At the rally last Wednesday, homosexual and lesbian members of their media (mostly unidentified members, unless we asked them) milled among us asking questions and photographing us. While I was speaking with the brave man who exposed the Fistgate scandal some time back, a photographer from the Bay Windows ("New England's Largest Gay and Lesbian Newspaper") recognized him and began snapping photos of him and then of me, standing only about three or four feet away and zooming in with her lens. She took one after another, until he asked her to stop and said he really thought two was more than enough. She went on to someone else.
Before I entered the capitol building a few minutes later, I was approached by a young man and woman who identified themselves as members of the Homosexual Communist Media. He thrust a microphone into my face and asked why I was there. I did not speak well or smoothly to them, but I did speak: I told them I was there in support of the marriage Amendment. He asked why I supported it, and I told him, and also mentioned that more than 80% of voters polled in Massachusetts felt that [heterosexual] marriage was important to the family structure, and that 60% favored defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
The young man cut me off instantly, “Oh! So you´re in favor of mob rule!”
I frowned and said quietly, “That´s not mob rule—”
“Well, then, call it educated mob rule!”
I frowned again, waved him away and said, “I have nothing left to say to you.”
Before I left him, he insisted that I take a flier for the Homosexual Communist Media. I gave him one of ours, which he refused, but instead of throwing his away, I decided to read it. I´m glad I did. It began:
“The Homosexual Communist Media is an art collective based in Amsterdam. We have just founded a Boston faction, to begin subverting American morality and social culture...” (The italics are mine.)
Had I thought a little quicker, I would have said to him,
“You´re too late. It´s happened already.”
Perhaps you misunderstood my question. I'll rephrase it for you. Does something become moral because it is made legal under the law?
69 posted on 7/30/02 1:29 PM Pacific by Alan Chapman
Is your question like "Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?"?
God's law is primary. Much has been accomplished to understand and communicate God's law(s).
The extent to which man's law agrees with God's law will determine the relative morality of man's law.
How'm I doing?
Those things exist and they are not going away anytime soon. Even libertarians must deal with them. My rights are therefore violated by homosexual marriage, because I am forced to financially support a lifestyle that I find disagreeable.
As for my other argument, it is simple. Family is a holy institution ordained by God. The government is an institution ordained and created by God. To have the government God created recognize a union birthed in homosexual behavior is asking for trouble. America's cultural decline is occurring with ever-increasing speed.
Marriage is not whatever human beings wish to make of it. There is a higher standard whether people wish to recognize it or not.
So the US Constitution's affirmation of the right to worship other gods (in direct violation of God's commandment that we have no other gods before him) is immoral?
This does not hold for the "preaching" of homosexuality in our nations schools however. Children have no pressing "need" to learn about homosexuality at that age (I learned about it without any help from the "State", thank you very much). It's quite clear to anyone who's done any research on the subject: there simply isn't any scientific evidence to show that homosexuality is not a choice (i.e., genetic predisposition). Therefore the kids in school will do just fine without "instruction" about (read "indoctrination into") the homosexual lifestyle.
Other than the case of indoctrination in the schools however, I think the cause of homosexual marriage is a "red herring" for conservatives; protesting it only makes us look like we're as bigoted as they say we are. Let's keep a focus on what's important, I'd say.
I saw in a post today (regarding baby rapers and baby murderers) one Christian who said;
"I try to look for the Christ in every one"
I'm a Christian but I also believe that we are instructed to always be on the look out for evil in this world and not to stand there waiting for another verse to kick in to make dying a brutal/violent death "ok" I don't waste time "looking" for the Christ in someone. If they look threatening then the "30 yards-30 seconds" rule shall apply. Cloak? What cloak? I sold it.
Aren't you special....
In other words, if you allow homosexual marriage you will, within short order, get schools teaching that homosexuality is good and desirable. In fact you have i it already.
In short, we are discussing rights.
You cannot claim that homosexuality (or homosexual marriage) violates your rights. It does not. Two consenting adults participating in private sexuality behind closed doors, (or choosing to enter into marriage contract) does not violate your rights in any way, shape or form.
Government socialism violates your rights. Your beef is with socialism, not homosexual marriage.
You cannot use one government injustice (socialism) to justify another (government restrictions on the right of individuals to enter into a marriage contract).
If we're discussing rights, let's stick to the subject. The violation of your rights is predicated on the existence of socialistic government redistribution programs which seize your property against your will.
This alone is a violation of rights.
You seem to want to keep this one, as a reason to justify the other.
I don't get it.
That also goes a long way into explaining why homosexuals want their "lifestyle" to be taught in public schools.
Your "utilitarian" argument seems to have more at issue with the current socialist system/tax structure than it does with homosexaulity. Why not let gays exercise their individaul liberty and just change the tax structure?
Please identify where you see that in our Constitution.
I suspect you are referring to Ammendment Number 1.
Perhaps a clear definition of the word 'Religion' is required. When I read that word I understand it to mean one of the variances of worship to one Creator, not including the many variances of worshipping pretenders to that Throne.
Besides, that isn't the primary reason for opposing homosexual marriage anyway. What I listed in the rest of post #94 is a much better reason. To be very frank, homosexuals need the grace and forgiveness of Christ, just as I do. Government does not need to sanction their behavior.
Fine. I am in favor of taking a lot less of everybody's taxes.
But let's not talk about homosexuals as if they are a persecuted minority, like blacks in the South or the Irish in the Northeast. Homosexuals choose to behave in a particular way that has nothing to do with unchangeable charateristics such as color or race, and hurt themselves terribly in the process.
That isn't right.
As long as due process is observed, the State has the power righteously to compel, and to forbid. If your interlocutor succeeds in getting a law passed that is the embodiment of his beliefs, contrary your own opinions held equally strongly, then his views prevail over yours, and it is yours gracefully to concede, and to obey.
I might have preferred to buy liquor by the drink when I was in graduate school in Oklahoma in 1973, but I understood that the citizens there felt otherwise. And it didn't matter that their laws arose from what I would otherwise have dismissed as a moral tic, just the sort of thing one would expect from bluenoses and socially regressive candidates for psychotherapy. It was their state.
It wasn't my place to blow snot on them, their mores, or their laws. So to do is the mark of a typical liberal....... "I am more educated than you. I went to a better college. I went through more years of college than you. I know more, and I'm smarter. So get out of my way, and don't even think about trammeling me with your small-minded little laws. Laws like that are for little people like you."
Leona Helmsley actually said something like that. Which is why I brought it up.
The only morally legitimate purpose for state is the defense of individual rights.
Wrong again. Try a better argument in the Preamble of the Constitution.
Two consenting adult individuals engaging in a contract (of marriage or anything else) are not subject to state establishing terms and conditions, nor are they subject to state's demands of approval... in a society which values rights.
Wrong again. Two consenting adults engaging in a contract to deliver sale weight in a suitcase, or to deliver home-made $50 bills, will find out exactly how much the State can demand of them in correcting their behavior.
I think it's more a matter of their not wanting to put up with sleeping with a person of the other gender, in order to procreate.
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