marriage equality in California

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gay people can't be homophobic bigots.

and black people can't be racist.

... but, that said, i really have no idea what Raimondo is trying to say here. there have always been "anti-assimilationist" elements of what's known as the gay community. this is nothing new. and if this is how Raimondo sees himself -- that his sexual orientation is an attempt to tweak the culture at large, to underscore it's hypocrisies and highlight it's prejudices -- well, that's perfectly fine. his views aren't terribly different from many heterosexual feminists or anti-establishment types.

i'm not sure how well it holds up as an argument *against* marriage equality. and i don't see how he advances his cause with paragraphs like this:

[q]Lesbians can, and do, get pregnant: they raise children, thousands of whom are presently alive and kicking. In San Francisco, they make up a significant—and growing—part of the public school population. Lesbians, therefore, fit into the procreative model of marriage, even though they cannot reproduce without the passive participation of men who donate sperm. Gay men, on the other hand, are … men, and no man really wants to get married.

Promiscuity and its attendant attitudes go hand-in-hand with maleness: it’s our genetic and socially constructed legacy, imprinted on our very nature and invincible to the assaults of both politically correct feminists and puritans of the Right. Monogamy and maleness are opposites in a dichotomy: the idea of sexual fidelity is distinctively feminine, linked as it is with an overwhelming (and inherent) need for security and certainty – that is, the certainty that the father of her children will assist in their proper rearing. The collapse of this socio-sexual compact, which undergirds our civilization, is behind the inner city’s descent into barbarism, where roving bands of undisciplined fatherless males have been unleashed, wreaking havoc and filling the prisons.

[/q]

i know quite a few heterosexual men who would be quite offended by this, and it's also demonstrably untrue and an example of journalism at it's absolute worst -- the taking of a few generalizations and ballooning them to create a monocausal explanation for a host of behavior that could be charitably described as complex.

and when he writes something like this ...

[q]This gay male aversion to marriage is prefigured in the rate of domestic partnerships—intended as a precursor of gay marriage—in urban gay ghettos. Even fewer will sign up for that trip to the altar, especially when it dawns on them that with the right to marry comes a few responsibilities, particularly of a financial nature.[/q]

he just comes off like a bitter old queen.
 
^

So there are self-loathing gay men?!



more than a few.

also, gay men who contradict themselves, wildly when they write this ...

[q]To the gay activists of the modern era, with their dogma of biological determinism – the “gay gene—and their ingrained egalitarianism, such an argument is inconceivable. For them, there is no choice involved: they fervently believe they are genetically determined to engage in homosexual acts.[/q]

and then writes in another article ...

[q]I don’t care one whit about Rudy Giuliani’s private life, although I have a hard time believing the evangelicals are quite ready for the rutting Rudy. He is, after all, an Italian male, with certain impulses wired into his brain, particularly that part of it that rules the sexual imagination. I say, more power to him in that department – life, as the Italians know, is to be enjoyed, rather than endured.[/q]


i mean, honestly ...
 
I don’t care one whit about Rudy Giuliani’s private life...
He is, after all, an Italian male, with certain impulses wired into his brain...


i mean, honestly ...

nosferatu.jpg


giuliani%20baby.jpg



that baby went missing :yes:
 
Yes, on the one hand he argues against the existence of a genetic predisposition for homosexuality, on the other hand he points out that males are allegedly by genetic not monogamous and promiscuitive.
 
more than a few.

also, gay men who contradict themselves, wildly when they write this ...

[q]To the gay activists of the modern era, with their dogma of biological determinism – the “gay gene—and their ingrained egalitarianism, such an argument is inconceivable. For them, there is no choice involved: they fervently believe they are genetically determined to engage in homosexual acts.[/q]

and then writes in another article ...

[q]I don’t care one whit about Rudy Giuliani’s private life, although I have a hard time believing the evangelicals are quite ready for the rutting Rudy. He is, after all, an Italian male, with certain impulses wired into his brain, particularly that part of it that rules the sexual imagination. I say, more power to him in that department – life, as the Italians know, is to be enjoyed, rather than endured.[/q]


i mean, honestly ...


That's pretty weak, Irvine. For a start, even if the paragraph about Rudy Giuliani's alleged sexual prowess is meant to be taken seriously (which I doubt) it doesn't contradict his other point.

Second, it's fairly obvious that he isn't being entirely serious with those comments. Raimondo is - like Giuiliani - of Italian descent so surely entitled to make 'nudge-nudge wink-wink' jokes regarding stereotypes about Italian males.
 
Top-notch journalism to feed the "threatened" majority. :up:

Considering how unpopular most of his stances are with most self-styled conservatives, the implication that he has all of a sudden decided to curry favour with a 'threatened' majority is not worthy of any credence whatsoever.
 
That's pretty weak, Irvine. For a start, even if the paragraph about Rudy Giuliani's alleged sexual prowess is meant to be taken seriously (which I doubt) it doesn't contradict his other point.


it does totally contradict his point.


Second, it's fairly obvious that he isn't being entirely serious with those comments. Raimondo is - like Giuiliani - of Italian descent so surely entitled to make 'nudge-nudge wink-wink' jokes regarding stereotypes about Italian males.


so we can surmise that he doesn't want to be taken seriously? this isn't on par with, say, Obama criticizing black men for high rates of illegitimacy amongst african-american children. there are statistics that back that up. it's a well documented social problem attributed to a whole host of factors.

all he's saying is that gay men are men and men like to fuck. and italian men really like to fuck. it's in their genes. they can't help themselves.

and this is based on ... what, exactly?
 
financeguy, what's your opinion of Raimondo's take on marriage?
[q]Marriage is all about children: otherwise, there is no real reason for it, and especially not in the modern world, where internet hook-ups, de facto polygamy, and rampant promiscuity are widely accepted. It is, in short, an economic institution, a financial framework for the bringing up of a new generation. Marriage is an agreement between two adults that they will, together, provide for the needs of their offspring, and, indeed, when the time comes, pass on their accumulated wealth.

This is not to say that childless marriages aren’t really marriages, or that all the emotional and psychological trappings of traditional marriage–monogamy, commitment, and, yes, love—are irrelevant. I am here talking about the civil institution of marriage, as it has evolved in the English-speaking world, and not the cultural phenomenon that has evolved over many millennia—something not created but rather co-opted by the State.

...Pagilia is right. Marriage is not a civil institution but a religious-cultural tradition that the State has (so far) been forced to respect and recognize—and it is centered around procreation, which is not an issue most homosexuals have to deal with.[/q]
...and his view of male sexuality?
[q]Promiscuity and its attendant attitudes go hand-in-hand with maleness: it’s our genetic and socially constructed legacy, imprinted on our very nature and invincible to the assaults of both politically correct feminists and puritans of the Right. Monogamy and maleness are opposites in a dichotomy: the idea of sexual fidelity is distinctively feminine, linked as it is with an overwhelming (and inherent) need for security and certainty – that is, the certainty that the father of her children will assist in their proper rearing.[/q]
 
it does totally contradict his point.


No it doesn't. Two separate issues. At the risk of repetition:-

To the gay activists of the modern era, with their dogma of biological determinism – the “gay gene—and their ingrained egalitarianism, such an argument is inconceivable. For them, there is no choice involved: they fervently believe they are genetically determined to engage in homosexual acts. In this view, sexual orientation is like gender and race. In the context of the society in which we live, this means that it is—or ought to be—illegal to “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation, in the same way and for the same reasons it is now a hate crime to consider matters of race, religion, and gender in the realm of housing, employment, and socio-economic relations in general.
 
financeguy, what's your opinion of Raimondo's take on marriage?
[q]Marriage is all about children: otherwise, there is no real reason for it, and especially not in the modern world, where internet hook-ups, de facto polygamy, and rampant promiscuity are widely accepted. It is, in short, an economic institution, a financial framework for the bringing up of a new generation. Marriage is an agreement between two adults that they will, together, provide for the needs of their offspring, and, indeed, when the time comes, pass on their accumulated wealth.

This is not to say that childless marriages aren’t really marriages, or that all the emotional and psychological trappings of traditional marriage–monogamy, commitment, and, yes, love—are irrelevant. I am here talking about the civil institution of marriage, as it has evolved in the English-speaking world, and not the cultural phenomenon that has evolved over many millennia—something not created but rather co-opted by the State.

...Pagilia is right. Marriage is not a civil institution but a religious-cultural tradition that the State has (so far) been forced to respect and recognize—and it is centered around procreation, which is not an issue most homosexuals have to deal with.[/q]
...and his view of male sexuality?
[q]Promiscuity and its attendant attitudes go hand-in-hand with maleness: it’s our genetic and socially constructed legacy, imprinted on our very nature and invincible to the assaults of both politically correct feminists and puritans of the Right. Monogamy and maleness are opposites in a dichotomy: the idea of sexual fidelity is distinctively feminine, linked as it is with an overwhelming (and inherent) need for security and certainty – that is, the certainty that the father of her children will assist in their proper rearing.[/q]

I agree with his take on marriage. His claim that all males are driven to be promiscuous is too simplistic.
 
His claim that all males are driven to be promiscuous is too simplistic.
I agree. Likewise, the number of women who cheat on their children's fathers/husbands/partners would seem to raise considerable problems for his claim that women have an overwhelming drive to be monogamous.
I agree with his take on marriage.
So, would it be an overreach to surmise that you have objections to the idea of gay (and lesbian?) marriage, and that those objections follow largely from a conviction that marriage should be exclusively reserved for fertile heterosexual couples who intend to have and raise children together?
 
i'm just having a tough time taking that article seriously.

perhaps it's the invidious homosexual agenda, but i've grown up not viewing myself as all that different and anti-establishment and anarchist from my straight peers.

sure, there are some gender differences that are amplified when you've got two guys or two girls in a relationship, but i've always noted how similar my relationship is to everyone else's.

guess i'm wrong. :shrug:
 
Gay-marriage advocates hope to repeal old law
Nonresidents now barred

By Matt Viser, Boston Globe Staff | July 10, 2008

State lawmakers are expected to vote next week on repealing a 1913 law that prevents out-of-state gay and lesbian couples from getting married in Massachusetts, reigniting a divisive debate on an issue that has stirred passions and put the state in the national spotlight.

The Senate is expected to take up the legislation Tuesday, and the House will follow shortly afterward, according to several lawmakers. House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray favor the repeal, but their support on such a hot-button social issue does not guarantee that rank-and-file lawmakers will follow.

Advocates of same-sex marriage rights said they are hopeful the repeal will pass, given the support from the legislative leadership and from Governor Deval Patrick, whose position is much more sympathetic than that of Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican who was a staunch opponent of gay marriage.

"This is extraordinarily significant," said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "If we get the 1913 law repealed, it brings us one very important step closer to full equality."

Several lawmakers, though, have long opposed same-sex marriage and plan to fight the repeal.

"I have a problem with it; I've always had a problem with it," said Representative James R. Miceli, a Democrat from Wilmington who has consistently voted against gay marriage. "I just feel that it would be hypocritical if I turned around and said, 'Fine, you can come here and get married, and we'll recognize it.' "

Proponents expect their effort to repeal the law to be divisive, but not as much as a constitutional amendment last year that would have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. That measure, which needed a two-thirds majority, was rejected, 151 to 45.

Repeal of the 1913 law requires just a simple majority to pass, but legislative leaders would not make any predictions yesterday, adding that they were just starting to poll members to see if they have enough votes.

The 1913 statute prevents Massachusetts from sanctioning marriages that are not legal in the state where the couple lives. The law was enacted in part to prevent interracial couples from evading their own state's ban by traveling to Massachusetts to marry. It was a little-used and rarely enforced law until opponents used it to prevent out-of-state gay couples from getting married in Massachusetts after the state legalized same-sex marriage in 2004.

DiMasi declined requests for an interview.

"As a strong supporter of gay marriage rights, the speaker believes the so-called 1913 law is outdated and unfair," said David Guarino, DiMasi's spokesman. "He believes it should be repealed, and he is hopeful that we will see it repealed before the end of this session."

The governor and Senate president have previously said they oppose the law, and their spokesmen said yesterday that they continue to support repeal. Patrick and Murray also declined requests for an interview.

"The governor supports the repeal of the law and will sign it if passed," said Patrick's spokesman, Kyle Sullivan.

Removing the law would put Massachusetts on par with California, where a court ruled in May that gay marriage was legal for all couples, including those who live out of state. In May, Governor David Paterson of New York directed all state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages in other states, including Massachusetts and California.

Massachusetts legislators have considered repealing the 1913 law in the past, but have not put an emphasis on trying to repeal it, largely because attention was diverted last year to quashing the effort to make same-sex marriage illegal.

Former senator Jarrett T. Barrios, a Democrat from Cambridge, filed legislation in 2007 that would have repealed the law. Although he resigned last year to become president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation, his legislation is still pending and will be championed by Senator Dianne Wilkerson, a Roxbury Democrat.

"It is time for this to be erased from the annals of Massachusetts law," Wilkerson said.

In 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court issued a landmark ruling saying that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying was unconstitutional and paving the way for marriage licenses to go out in May 2004. But, citing the 1913 law, Romney ordered city and town clerks to prevent nonresident gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts, a decision that was upheld by the SJC in March 2006.

Supporters of repealing the 95-year-old law contend that it is a matter of fairness and that it would also boost the state's economy by encouraging gay residents from other states to come to Massachusetts to marry.

Opponents fear that, as Romney said, a repeal would turn the state into "the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage" and force other states to recognize Massachusetts marriage laws.

"We certainly don't want to see Massachusetts exporting this radical social experiment to the other 49 states, and that's what this would do," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which plans to mobilize and oppose the repeal effort.

The issue has never come to the House floor. The Senate voted to repeal the law as a budget amendment in 2004, but the provision was not included as part of the final budget.

"It's time for it to go," said Marc Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, a gay-marriage advocacy coalition.

"We have one important piece of unfinished business," he said, "and that's repealing this antiquated law."
 
Let me first off start by stating that I have a hard time taking anything that Justin Raimondo says seriously. He's a nut for all the same reasons I can't take most Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, and all of Lyndon LaRouche's supporters seriously.

But for the sake of argument...

Far from arguing that homosexuality was the equivalent of heterosexuality, the ancient advocates of same-sex love emphasized the great gulf that separates the two. Rather than aping heterosexuals and relentlessly lobbying for the “right” to marry, Plato’s crowd sought to distance themselves from the mundane and underscore their singularity. Pausanias argues that the choice of younger men over available women is indicative of a superior moral quality, evidence of a purity that defies and transcends biology. Homosexual love, he averred, represents an improvement over nature – which is, after all, the signal characteristic of human civilization.

As I have noted before in my various discussions about "homosexuality" and the Bible, what people thought of same-sex attractions in the ancient world is highly different to how people perceive it today. Of course the Greco-Roman world would not have seen them as "equal," because the notion of equality wasn't particularly in their vocabulary when you have distinctions between slaves, freemen, and citizens, for instance. Secondly, "same-sex" relations were generally perceived as being either in the context of pederasty (old man, teenage boy) or idolatry, in bisexual pagan temple orgies. In all instances, having a wife and children was expected upon reaching adulthood. It does not compare whatsoever to the modern practices of homosexuality.

To the gay activists of the modern era, with their dogma of biological determinism – the “gay gene—and their ingrained egalitarianism, such an argument is inconceivable. For them, there is no choice involved: they fervently believe they are genetically determined to engage in homosexual acts. In this view, sexual orientation is like gender and race. In the context of the society in which we live, this means that it is—or ought to be—illegal to “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation, in the same way and for the same reasons it is now a hate crime to consider matters of race, religion, and gender in the realm of housing, employment, and socio-economic relations in general.

"Gay activists." "Dogma." "Egalitarianism." "Hate crimes." Throw in communism, and you've got the usual laundry list of unfounded anti-liberal specters.

This orthodoxy sits atop a mountain of pseudo-science mixed with moralizing, one that asserts—without convincing scientific evidence—that sexual “orientation” is genetically determined. It is the Left-liberal version of Lysenkoism, in which ideology determines political conclusions in advance of the facts (except that Lysenko, and his Stalinist sponsors, were expressing the leftist orthodoxy of the day that men could be engineered through the power of the State.)

Ah there we go..."Stalin" and "Lysenko." No good "conservative" can resist throwing on some good old reference to communism!

If I haven't made it clear, I think Raimondo is full of crap, as always. There's nothing but pseudo-intellectual half-arguments seeded with unfounded stereotypes against homosexuals, for one, but liberals mostly. That's what this little tirade is about: anti-liberalism and anti-modernism. And you know what's funny? I have my anti-liberal and anti-modernist moments, as well, but what really gets my goat is how something as immutable as sexual orientation somehow became equated with a "modernist liberal ideology," rather than what it is: an issue of civil and human rights.

Raimondo, however, is either too willfully blind or flat out too stupid to see this (I haven't ever encountered an intelligent self-described paleoconservative, frankly), even though he himself is living proof that it is possible to be gay and not liberal!
 
July 15, 2008 03:36 PM

By Globe Staff

The Massachusetts Senate today passed a bill that would repeal a 1913 state law that prevents gay and lesbian couples from most other states from marrying in Massachusetts.

The bill, which had the support of Senate President Therese Murray, passed with no objections on a voice vote. Proponents of the repeal called the 1913 law archaic and discriminatory.

"There are very few laws on the books that I can say that I'm ashamed that they're on the books," said State Senator Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat. He said he opposed the law because of the "immorality of discrimination."

"This is a very simple law, contrived in shame, and it exists in shame and we ought to wipe it off the books," he said.

"The 1913 law is a shadow, a terrible shadow. It represents a segregationist past that is best put to rest and put to rest quickly," said Senator Harriette Chandler, a Worcester Democrat.

The law originated when lawmakers in many states were trying to prevent interracial couples from crossing state lines to marry. It fell into obscurity for decades. But it received new attention in 2004, when Republican Governor Mitt Romney invoked it after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts to prevent out-of-state gay and lesbian couples from marrying here and forcing their home states to consider recognizing Massachusetts marriage law.

“The Massachusetts Senate has no right to infringe on the internal issues of how other states define marriage but that’s exactly what they voted today to do,” Kris Mineau, president, Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposed the repeal, said in a statement after the vote.

The bill now heads to the House, where Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi has already expressed support. Supporters said they expected the bill to pass the House and be signed by Governor Deval Patrick by the end of the month. "If that bill comes to me, I will sign it and sign it proudly," Patrick said Monday.
 
July 15, 2008 03:36 PM

By Globe Staff


The law originated when lawmakers in many states were trying to prevent interracial couples from crossing state lines to marry.

I'm just quoting this again in case there are still posters out there who insist that their opposition to gay marriage isn't at all like the opposition to interracial marriage was.


Just in case.
 
Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Suppose the law had been written 50 years earlier solely to prevent Mormons in neighboring states from traveling to Massachusetts to marry... and marry... and marry. THEN, in the early 1900's, it was enforced to prevent interracial couples from crossing state lines to marry.

Then opposition to polygamy in 2008 would be morally equivalent to racism as well wouldn't it?
 
I'm just quoting this again in case there are still posters out there who insist that their opposition to gay marriage isn't at all like the opposition to interracial marriage was.

Just in case.
I'll pass that on to the posters who have long since been intimidated into silence on this topic as well as the great majority of Americans and BOTH presidential candidates.

And now I'll slip into my nomex underwear.

target.gif


Just in case.
 
I'll pass that on to the posters who have long since been intimidated into silence on this topic as well as the great majority of Americans and BOTH presidential candidates.

:sad:

It's terrible being intimidated into silence about your religious bigotry. :sad:


It's even sadder being denied access to the rights other Americans have because you're gay. :|


So pardon me while I weep silent tears for you.
 
:yippie:

I knew one of you wouldn't let me down!


OK, suppose the law was written in 1931 solely to prevent Bonnie & Clyde from marrying in Massachusetts
Then, the majority of Americans in 2008 who believe armed bank robbery is wrong are... gangsterphobic?

Ridiculous? Of coarse, but so is your notion that opposition to same-sex marriage is no different than opposition to interracial marriage 100 years ago.

You set up the jump Evel, you make it first for me.
 
Ridiculous? Of coarse, but so is your notion that opposition to same-sex marriage is no different than opposition to interracial marriage 100 years ago.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix."

Is it all that different? The opposition in both circumstances seems to be primarily based on religious bigotry and erroneous stereotypes.
 
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