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Abolishing Marriage in Washington, D.C.
· Monday, December 21, 2009
The liberal newspapers are hailing the passage of a counterfeit marriage bill by the District of Columbia city council as a breakthrough, as a step forward for what they call “marriage equality.” It’s not. It’s abolishing marriage.
That’s because when everyone can get married, no one can get married. Remember, we’ve all been schooled in that LGBT formulation. That means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. The advocates of counterfeiting marriage cannot leave out their B and T. So, what will that mean? How can they deny “marriage equality” to a bisexual person who wants to marry two significant others? Or what about a person who has attempted through surgery and drugs to change his sex? Should such a person, if married, be denied the right to marry another person?
If love and commitment make a marriage, why cannot brothers and sisters marry? Or fathers and daughters? What the District Council has done is to open the door to polygamy, to incest. There is no basis in law or logic for denying such persons their desire for so-called marriage equality.
The reason I call this measure counterfeit marriage is because these false marriage bills have the same effect on true marriage that counterfeiting money has on real money. Secret Service Agents are trained to spot counterfeit money. They can’t follow all the possible forms of counterfeiting, so they’re trained to know real money when they see it. In a similar way, the voters know real marriage when they see it.
Abraham Lincoln once posed a question: Suppose we agree to call a horse’s tail a leg; then how many legs does a horse have? His hearers answered five. No, said Lincoln, our agreeing to call a tail a leg does not make it a leg. Similarly, the District Council’s action in calling something marriage cannot make it marriage.
Why is this so serious? It’s important because marriage is social justice for the poor. Every social science indicator we have shows that children raised by a mother and father who are married have the best prospects in life. If we really care about health, education, and welfare, we cannot destroy marriage.
But that’s exactly what we are doing when we counterfeit marriage. Most Americans oppose this. In 31 states—including liberal states and conservative states—marriage has won when put on the ballot. In three liberal states—Washington, New York, and Maryland—the Supreme Courts have ruled that true marriage deserves protection because it is essential for the raising of children.
Counterfeit marriage will also constitute a grave threat to religious liberty and the rights of conscience. Think you’re immune? You will be forced to accept these counterfeit marriages in hundreds of ways—if you’re an employer, if you’re an employee, if your church is like the Catholic Church and provides vital social services to many of the neediest. You’ll have to go along or be ostracized, called a bigot. This is truly dangerous to us all.
Congress should act to protect marriage in the nation’s capital. At the very least, Congress should require that the people’s voice be heard. Let people vote on protecting marriage.
Lincoln’s Republican Party knew something about human rights. The first platform ever crafted by the party—in 1856—called slavery and polygamy the “twin relics of barbarism.” We all agree about slavery being barbaric. It’s time to see that overturning marriage is also barbaric.
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Dave from jersey
Does this guy really think that the "bi" in bisexual means they fall in love with two people at the same time? How incredibly ignorant ... and dumb. He goes on to make the same silly arguments agains marriage equality I've seen refuted many other places, but it's the first time I've seen someone write a commentary on LGBT issues that apparently thought bisexuality was a form of polygamy.
Posted December 21, 2009 at 8:48:48 AM
Dale8
I see you still can't keep your religious beliefs out of my laws. And you continue with your beliefs that the LGBT citizens of DC should be second-class to accommodate the 'Church.'
Posted December 21, 2009 at 10:38:31 AM
Ray
Mr. Blackwell, Dave8 & Dale in New Jersey don't have a clue...
Gay & straight liberals say that discrimination is discrimination, that marriage should be based upon love and that they are for "marriage equality" for consenting adult homosexuals. Yet they kick all of that talk to the curb when it comes to "marriage equality" for consenting adult polygamists.
Gay & straight liberals say that legal, consenting adult gay marriage should be allowed, yet they kick that talk to the curb when it comes to allowing legal, consenting adult polygamous marriage.
Gay & straight liberals, therefore, show themselves to be bigoted hypocrites on these matters.
Gay & straight liberals say that polygamy should not be allowed because it is illegal in the U.S. What about gay marriage 10 years ago? Was it legal anywhere in the U.S? Did gay & straight liberals throw their hands up in the air and not try to get it legalized? No. Gay marriage is illegal in the overwhelming majority of places in the U.S. today, but do gay & straight liberals give up? No. So gay & straight liberals must not bring up polygamy being illegal as a reason to justify their bigoted hypocrisy. Gay & straight liberals say that the Supreme Court of the U.S. declared polygamy to be illegal. If the Supreme Court of the U.S. had declared gay marriage to be illegal, would gay & straight liberals give up? No. They would fight to get the Supreme Court of the U.S. to overturn its ruling.
Gay & straight liberals said that the Supreme Court of the U.S. overturning sodomy laws would not lead to the push for same-sex marriage. They were wrong. They said that what happened in the bedroom would stay there. Wrong again. They have said that pushing for legal, consenting adult same-sex marriage would not lead to a push for legal, consenting adult polygamous marriage. Wrong yet again. The same arguments (marriage is about "love," discrimination is discrimination and on and on) that are being used to try and get same-sex marriage legalized across the U.S. will be used by polygamists to try and get polygamy legalized across America, be they polygamist Mormons or polygamist Muslims. In fact, the same arguments are being used by pro-polygamy advocates. Next we will hear that people who are against polygamy are Islamophobes.
People should not use the Bible somehow condoning polygamy against those who raise these issues, since Jesus never condoned polygamy or same-sex marriage for that matter.
People need to support traditional marriage (marriage between one man and one woman) and that alone. If that makes me a bigot then so be it. At least I am not a hypocritical bigot who supports legal, consenting adult gay marriage but not legal, consenting adult polygamous marriage. And at least I am not a whacked-out radical extremist who supports both legal, consenting adult gay marriage AND legal, consenting addult polygamous marriage.
Posted December 21, 2009 at 3:44:04 PM
GG
Dave from Jersey:
Ken's point about bisexuals was that if a man can marry a woman, and a man can marry a man, why can't a man marry a man and a woman? The same logic that leads to homosexual marriage leads directly to any combination of marriage you can dream up. You may not personally know a bisexual who wants to marry both a man and woman, but I guarantee you there are plenty out there who do.
By allowing homosexual marriage, you open a legal Pandora's box in which anything goes. And I do mean anything; if you can think it up, somebody will want to try it. And now you have no legal way to say "no", because after all, any law opposing any type of union between consenting adults will be legally declared "unlawful discrimination".
There are plenty of practical reasons why homosexual marriage should not be legal, and most of them have nothing to do with religion.
Posted December 22, 2009 at 4:58:17 PM