Last November, 7 million Californians voted for Proposition 8, which
amended that state’s Constitution to make the legal definition of
“marriage” as being between one man and one woman. It was shocking to
many, especially since Californians also voted for Barack Obama in
large numbers (although Obama has steadfastly said that he does not
support gay marriage, but rather fully protected civil unions).
Several years ago, I was on a bus heading to exotic Ajo, Ariz., for
a basketball game. One of my players, Nora, was writing a paper and
asked me what I thought of gay marriage. I will admit that my absolute
first reaction was, “‘Marriage’ doesn’t mean that. It means something
else. Words have specific meanings.” (All writers are at least amateur
etymologists.)
Nora gave me this incredibly disappointed look, second in intensity
only to the time I said that the United States was right to have
dropped those bombs on Japan to end World War II. I really do believe
that, along the lines of, “They started it, but we finished it.” I’m
kinda street like that. (Note the ironic misuse of a noun as an
adjective there.)
We talked about it all the way to Ajo, and through her clarity of
youth and strength of conviction, she did a good job of stating her
case. I asked her why they can’t just call it something else, like
“gay-rriage.” (For a picosecond, I thought that was clever.)
I presented her with the dreaded, “Yeah, but what about that guy?!” argument. What about polygamists? Personally, I’d have no
problem with that if the adults all entered into the arrangement
freely. But what if it’s one of those man/boy love creeps? I never said
this to Nora, but I remember thinking at the time, “You can just hear
the old guy saying, ‘We’re two human beings, and we love each other;
age and gender shouldn’t matter. Timmy agrees with me, and I’m sure
he’d say the same thing, even if I untied him.'”
Those trips to Ajo are brutal on the mind.
A few years have gone by. Nora’s now a senior at St. Mary’s in
California (the one with the good basketball team). She is studying in
Argentina this semester. We recently went back over that conversation
we had on that bus. She had been right, and I had been stodgy. Since
that time, there have been great strides forward—and more than a
couple of shocking steps back.
The vote in California was a substantial 52.3-47.7 split, with a
winning margin of about 600,000 votes. That’s not a fluke. If you want
to see something really amazing, Google a map of county-by-county
results of Prop 8. More than three-fourths of California’s counties
voted in favor of it, some by whopping margins. Moreover, Los Angeles
County—home to Hollywood, West Hollywood and all those
wannabes—voted in favor of Prop 8 (though it was very close).
The millions in California who are in favor of gay marriage now face
a quandary. There is a nasty split between those who want to get right
back in the fight next year, and those who want to wait until the
presidential election year of 2012 to put up a ballot proposition to
repeal Prop 8. It’s a tough call either way.
Nearly $80 million was spent by the two sides in the fight over Prop
8, and any way you look at it, that’s a sickening number. The total for
any future rematch could hit nine figures. Also, if history holds, the
Democrats are likely to lose congressional seats in the midterm
elections next year. (Bush bucked that trend in 2002 after Karl Rove
convinced him to make all of Congress sign off on the Iraq invasion
before the elections; the gutless Dems should have told him to shove
it.) It’s unclear what effect another gay-marriage proposition on the
ballot would have.
The more-pragmatic gay-marriage backers are urging an all-out fight
in 2012. They argue that the tide of history is in their favor, and
many voters will have changed their minds by then.
In strict political terms, it probably would be better to wait until
2012, to plan a better campaign, to not be over-confident, to realize
that the opposition does not consist of 7 million gay-bashers, and to
get San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to shut up instead of alienating
fence-sitters with remarks like, “This is coming, so you’d better get
used to it.”
However, it’s hard to look at this in “strict political terms.”
These are people’s lives here, and if justice delayed is justice denied
(which it is), then so, too, would it be for rights delayed. Muddying
that argument is the fact that the California Supreme Court not only
upheld Prop 8, but also said, in response to California Attorney
General Jerry Brown’s claim that gay marriage is an inalienable right,
“No authority supports the attorney general’s claim.”
It’s easy for me to say that in 20 years or so, we’ll all look back
and wonder what the big deal was. But it’s not fair to ask gay people
to wait that 20 years with the rest of us.
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2009.
Homosexuality is an Illness. Wrong is Wrong. Homosexuality is WRONG.
Homosexual is an illness. Many homosexuals were molested, introduced at a young age in their environment, raped, or experimented young and gave way an emotional depressed, drunken state. Does not mean they are gay. They committed an immoral act and an unnatural act. How that person chooses to recover is his/or her free will.
When homosexual is introduced at a young age, this is child abuse.
danehy, Your article is all over the place and reads as if you have problems. Your have a moral problem, a Bush problem, a justice problem, identity problem, a statistical problem, a demo problem, and a psychological problem. You have more fleas than a stray dog. That may explain why you want to see to male dogs hump each other. Poor guy.
The homosexual will even say he or she have picked up homosexual acts from around his or her environment. So if you show this child abusive way, her kids mental out look will be immoral, corrupt, and debased from natural being.
In the King James Version, Leviticus 18:22 is translated: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
All homosexual behavior is sinful, regardless of the nature of the relationship. Homosexuality is a chosen, unnatural, abnormal, changeable, and perverted lifestyle, which is hated by God.
The homosexual is just feeling bad and taking his/ or her problem out into the world because of bad experiences and the unknowing why and how this could have happen to him or her. Mainly blaming God , instead of blaming the assailants, their so called friend, or themselves for giving in to a horrible choice.
Now the homosexual is feeling there is no choice and that is why the homosexual tells a person that is his choice. Believing it is his or her free will , but in fact rooted from an episode, an event, or from environment.
Good People of America,
Stand up and defend moral values. Defend child abuse. Save our Children!
STOP Homosexuality!
Will you save my children, tom
Will you save my children, Tom
Will you save my children, TOM
Here we go again–lets just make stuff up and call it “facts”. In reply to soujourn: A: No–gay people are not all products of child abuse. Do you KNOW any gay people? Can’t imagine that any would out themselves to you. B: Read the rest of Leviticus: I assume that Sojourn regularly makes formal burnt offerings of animals, turtledoves and pigeons–all prepared to the exact specifications of the instructions in Leviticus. Apparently all sins are forgiven if you slaughter enough goats and lambs. And no bacon (being vegetarian this isn’t hard for me), and cast out all those lepers–no need for medical treatment–the leper can just go about crying “Unclean!, Unclean!” to get well. But the slave women are cut a break: If someone rapes her, she is not put to death, only scourged because she was not free to stop the rape and the man who raped her–he really gets what’s coming to him: he must offer a ram to the temple. And so forth. Its your book, soujourn, not mine and does not rule the U.S. (well–isn’t supposed to anyway.) Just so we all know: A deomocracy is not, in fact, majority rule. The majority should not even be allowed to vote on the rights of the few. If we counted on that, African Americans would still be trying to get the Civil Rights Act passed and women would still be waiting to vote. “With liberty and justice for”, well, almost everyone. By the way, I am not gay–I just think that in America, everyone should have the right to choose whom they love and should have access to the same legal protections. To you homophobes against gay marraige–I have my best advice: Don’t marry a gay person. There–now you can go back to minding your own business.
Wow. Nine comments by the same person. The literal version of doctoring a photograph to make it look like more people showed up at your rally than really did.
My question is: why does someone that so obviously believes the bible should be taken literally read Tucson Weekly? You know it’s just going to make you upset when you read something that isn’t written by a white-male-middle-class-middle-aged-vanilla-sex author?
To Sojourn I’d like to say get out of the Old Testament and read the rest of your Bible. God does not hate anyone! If he did we would have all been wiped off the face of the earth by now. Homosexuality is natural, determined at birth or within the first few years of our lives. It is NOT changeable and is not perverted to love who you love. As a christian I am offended by your fundamental views that would exclude anyone who does believe the way you do. So learn to deal with your own problems first, (expressed by so many comments by you on this subject) and let God’s love prevail in this His creation.
To Tom I’d like to say, way to go man, continue to learn and grow!
Wow. sojourn sounds like a complete, uneducated douche.
The essential problem here is that we do not define specifically what advantages government does – or should – in fact afford married people vis a vis single people. An ideal solution would be to repeal those advantages, whatever they may be.
With no fault divorce (as well as no-particular-advantage marriage), it’s kind of silly to regard marriage as a government function anyway. Leave it to churches.
If some churches want to refer to partners as married, fine. If they choose not to, also fine.
Or if you want to keep the advantages in place somehow, get rid of the marriage certificate given by government and signed by a preacher authorized by government to do so. Issue ‘civil union certificates’ to anyone who wishes them, by civil union issuers, or any bureaucratic authority. Probably a civil union cancellation certificate would also be necessary.
I doubt that our civilized society or current culture would be any more devastated than it currently is….
Who the hell is Sojourn, shame he got to comment first, fucking idiot. Gays should be just as miserable as straights. Gay marriage equals gay divorce. It’s unfair gays can be in a relationship for 20 years, leave and not have the same repercussions as a straight couple.
Sojourn is an illness
God hates Sojourns
I have no problem with civil unions or gays having equal rights, but marriage is a religious ritual and DOES have a definition…the joining of a man & woman to be husband & wife. This is simply impossible for gay couples. I’m almost certain a lot of the opposition would drop off if they worded it “Civil Unions”. Why not? Too many gays have that “in your face” attitude that sends them to extremes to antagonize others, and the result is more opposition (miggy420 is just as obnoxious as sojourn). The way that Perez Hilton jerk treated a beauty contest winner probably only served to earn him (but not all gays) more enemies. I’m actually enough of a Libertarian to support dropping special benefits to couples & treating them no differently from singles (especially for taxes, workplace benefits, etc.)
A definition can be expounded upon. Here’s what Webster’s has to say;
Main Entry: mar·riage
Pronunciation: ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Anglo-French, from marier to marry
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3 : an intimate or close union
* So your definition argument is no good MMP, as for me being annoying, nay I say, I’m funnier than Sojourn
A, ok. we get how YOU feel. Move on.
Goodness me, why are we feeding the troll?
Sojourn is a hateful, mean-spirited faux-Christian twat. Case rested. Donk-donk.
MMP, actually in our country people can marry in a courthouse or a casino, so many marriages have no religion involved. Also, many religions love and accept their gay and lesbian members and clergy, so being religious does not equate with denying equal marriage rights to our gay and lesbian neighbors. It is time to stop treating our neighbors like second class citizens.
OF course gay people should be allowed to get married. That’s a no-brainer.
Are gay people human? Check.
Are they consenting adults? Yep.
Do we allow OTHER people to marry, regardless of someone else’s religious disapproval? Yep. An atheist can pick up a stripper and get married in Vegas by Elvis at a drive-thru chapel.
And supposedly objective non-religious argument are drawn from the same pool of irrational bigotry used against mixed-race marriages 40 years ago.
It’s a legal contract, period. Denying people equal access to this contract is not equal protection of the laws (Fourteenth Amendment). Doing so for religious reasons violates religious freedom (First Amendment).
And since there are plenty of churches that will marry gay people, how can it be that only THEIR ceremonies are denied legal legitimacy by the state (First AND Fourteenth Amendments).
If you believe in the Bill of Rights, fair contracts, and indeed simple respect for other people, it is outrageous to use the power of government to harm these citizens simply based on who they are!
Again, it’s a no-brainer.
Let’s review. Your views on funding any and all downtown arts? OK Fine. Can we also stop subsidizing athletic programs that are taxpayer funded? Done. (One persons run down art studio, is another persons useless athletic facility). And your creative class ramble? It has been my experience that people in the arts do tend to gravitate toward urban areas. Much more opportunities for meeting other artists and possibly finding success. But you are correct about the murdering of over 200,000 innocent men, women and children to end WW2. It is a pity about them being civilians. And your recent column on gay marriage? I think it’s your equivalent of, “Hey! Look over there, it’s OJ riding a shark!” Or, more like, look over here, I’m still relevant.