Forgive me if it sounds like I’m trying to undermine gay rights. I’m really not! It’s just… if you haven’t noticed, the country is kind of sort of on fire at the moment. It’s as if the Titanic is sinking and we’re slowly trying to figure out how to properly arrange the chairs in the dining hall. Yeah, the chairs are messily stacked in a pile in the corner right now, but pretty soon, the chairs, the dining hall, and the entire ship is going to be 12,600 ft deep below ice water.
That being said though, lots of attention was given to contraceptives and gay marriage in this recent debate. The prime focus has generally been the economy, but now all of a sudden, social issues are the most crucial factor for electing a President.
GEE I couldn’t possibly imagine why!
Remember what I said back in the Santorum Delorean?
“Rick Santorum hates gay people!”
The Left has got to be the single most predictable group of people in the entire world.
Having listened to the narrative of politics my whole life, any person would think conservatives have this strong hatred for gay people, and the ones who hate them the most are actually closet homosexuals themselves.
I certainly don’t claim to speak for everyone, but as a conservative, from talking to conservatives, and through studying Conservatism, I’ve never once come across a sentiment as ludicrous as pure hatred for homosexuals. If anything, a lot of conservatives support homosexuals and their rights.
So what’s the problem?
It’s the way the argument is framed. I think Romney and Gingrich both clearly articulated this in the New Hampshire debate. We agree that it’s not right that homosexuals don’t have the same rights as a married couple, but there’s a difference between giving them those rights, and just blanketing the entire thing under marriage.
Marriage is legally defined as between a man and a woman. That’s not me being a religious extremist, that’s in the legal dictionary. That right is equal for everybody as it is, and in a sense, calling it the fight for “gay marriage” is a flawed term because gays DO have the right to marry, just not a member of the same sex.
Right from the start, the terminology causes a huge fracture. For once, the side that constantly makes a huge deal about language, can’t comprehend why people might put value in one word. As a result, while screaming at us about how we need to be accommodating and understanding, they completely trample over anyone who values marriage as a sacrament.
The fact is, there needs to be an understanding on both sides, for a true compromise to take place. That doesn’t mean one side completely sacrifices all of their views to fully accommodate the other. Honestly, it’s really as simple as Romney said: just don’t call it marriage. They can and should have all the rights that comes with marriage, but is it the end of the world to call it something different?
Apparently so. Enter “The New Civil Rights Movement,” a website that is devoted to gay rights. Utilizing another one of my pet peeves about this issue, the name of the site tries to tie the plight for gay rights to the long history of obtaining civil rights for African-Americans. Does anybody have a problem with that? Are you guys sure this is a completely proportionate comparison? Remember Slavery? Segregation? Lynchings? No? Hello?
I guess it would be fitting for the Left to completely undermine and downplay the struggles of African-Americans. After all, they were the ones responsible for it.
Anyway, in what proves to be another instance where I can verify that the Left is clinically insane, the responses by Romney and Gingrich, which in their substance are completely reasonable, are smeared as biased, bigoted, demeaning, you name it! They quote Gingrich saying:
“We want to make it possible to have those things that are most intimately human between friends. It is a huge jump from being understanding and considerate and concerned, which we should be, to saying we therefore are going to institute the sacrament of marriage as though it has no basis.”
He’s saying we SHOULD be focused on the concerns of gay rights, (The specifics are conveniently left out) yet the headline of the article is:
“Newt Gingrich Says Married Gay Couples Are Only ‘Friends’ At GOP Debate”
That’s what they took out of the entire statement. They then proceed to smear him for being divorced.
This is what the real injustice is to homosexuals. Not the “religious bigots” on the Right who really don’t care what you choose to do in your bedroom. It’s the dolts on the Left who are constantly framing the argument in this fashion that conservatives hate gay people and what happens in your church needs to be dictated.
Realistically, the issue of gay rights shouldn’t be this complicated, or impeding on either side and the solution should be such simple common sense that most every rational person would be on board with it. Instead we have this contrived, massively misrepresented argument that serves no purpose but to rally support for votes.
If you’re fighting for gay rights, this should be understood by you. While many on the Left want to paint conservatives as your enemy, the truth is, we’re really not. We certainly don’t hate you, and if anything, many of us want you to have the same rights. We just want you to take a step back and be just as accommodating for us, as we are for you.
The sooner there is mutual understanding for both sides, the sooner gay rights will be an easily obtained reality.
Just trying to help. Now um…where did all the lifeboats go?
First up, I’m writing from the UK. We’ve had civil partnerships for gay people for some years now. These give gays the same legal rights as in a regular heterosexual union.
I support the ideal of the sanctity of marriage. However, I also understand that you can get a quicky marriage in Las Vegas with the celebrant being an Elvis impersonator. There seems to be a values dissonance there.
As I don’t live in the USA, I may have missed something. I haven’t yet come across any of the Republican candidates saying in effect what you’ve said. One has apparently suggested that gays should just stop being gay [yes, the media may have taken words out of context; that's why I wrote 'apparently].
So, Republican candidates, can you be clear, concise and unambiguous on this issue [and all others]?
There’s always going to be values dissonance. Nobody and nothing is 100% pure. Many people like to generalize instances like that, and the 50% divorce rate to pin that characterization over marriage as a whole but forget that there’s a whole other 50%. There are still people who believe in and respect it.
I purposely didn’t defend Rick Santorum in this article cause I don’t think he did well in articulating the points I made here, but he never said “Gays should just stop being gay”. It’s part of the narrative that’s trying to be framed on him. He merely suggested that there were studies where gay people turned straight, in a discussion of how being gay isn’t the same thing as being black.
I agree there needs to be clarity and concise unambiguous statements on the issue. I think Santorum gets into that a lot, but I actually thought Mitt and Newt did fairly well in handling it.
If you want I can give you the super-secret memo that’s been passed around the GOP since the 80′s in regard to “those people”….come closer to the screen so I can whisper…..ready? We don’t care. Just don’t do it in front of my kids. Leave us out of it. You want a “Gay Day” at Disney? Fine, we’ll go to Universal that day instead. Stop shoving it down my throat and blame me for gagging already.
Honestly, I wrote an essay to some friends of mine about this, once I find it (with permission from the board here) I can post it if it helps. The gist of it is that Conservatives are not opposed to it, it’s the extra-Constitutional means that’s being used that’s irritating. Also the “oh you’re just a hater” retorts.
The Constitution calls for a separation of church and state – I don’t see why this shouldn’t apply to marriages as well. Any religious institution in this scenario would be entitled to its own policies over which marriages would be condoned within its walls and between its members.
Meanwhile, the state would not place any limits (aside from age) on marriage. This means that any couple, hetero- or homo-sexual, would be entitled to all legal privileges of being married, including tax benefits, hospital visitations, etc. Plenty of secular venues exist for weddings outside of the church – my sister had hers on the grounds of a beautiful estate.
The point I am trying to make is that the issue of “gay marriage” seems to stem from the belief that marriage itself should have only one meaning. Why? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the following definitions?
Marriage (church) – Holy matrimony; the union of one man and one woman under God.
Marriage (state) – The civil union between two consenting individuals of legal age, entitling them to all benefits that such a union entails.
Am I the only one who sees this as a non-issue? Is there not room for a colloquial definition of marriage alongside the church’s?