Same-sex marriage opponents smell blood in the water
Friends console one another early today after learning that voters had repealed Maine
As we all know by now, Maine voted yes on Prop 1, which repealed the state’s attempt to legalize gay marriage. Buoyed by this sad annulment of civil rights, same-sex marriage opponents have turned their sights to Iowa.
Bryan English, a spokesman for the Iowa Family Policy Center, and who — I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess — is not a man you want to be stuck next to at a dinner party, feels hopeful after Prop 1 passing.
“When the people of a state are given the chance to vote, they always support the only definition of marriage – one man and one woman,” says English.
There was also a time when citizens would have voted to keep their slaves, and then later voted to keep white kids in white schools and black kids in black schools. That’s a good argument for why we shouldn’t allow proposition votes to dictate human rights matters, and why federal legislation is needed to protect civil liberties — including gay citizens’ rights to marry, raise families, and be left the hell alone.
Where was I? Oh, right. English has a half-boner from the Maine results.
The Democrat-controlled Iowa Legislature have been rolling their eyes at English and his merry group of homophobes, and offering excuses for why they just don’t have the time to allow a vote on whether to call a referendum on the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to allow consenting adults to freely marry one another.
Yet English persists. For a bunch of Conservatives who hate Big Government, English and Co. seem super eager to get Big Brother to swoop in and annul all these gay marriages. This is one instance where they just can’t get enough state intervention.
State Senator Joe Seng, a Democrat, said he expected the Maine vote would “energize” gay marriage critics in the state. Seng was one of the Democrats who refused to sign a discharge petition late in the session to force the referendum question to the floor.
Only Republicans signed it.
Shocker.
Brad Clark, campaign director for OneIowa, an advocacy group, seems hopeful that Iowans are empathetic enough to protect their neighbors’ civil liberties.
“I think here in Iowa, people are thoughtful and fair-minded, and they don’t want to discriminate against their neighbors,” he said.
Not discriminating against people who aren’t hurting anyone? Good luck trying to sell that to Bryan English and his Conservative buddies.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by allisonkilkenny, Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl Strayed said: File under agree/depressing. RT @allisonkilkenny Same-sex marriage opponents smell blood in the water http://tinyurl.com/yb8rexn [...]
For all the shit people give Iowa, there are a lot of great people there. Hopefully they can push back against the anti-marriage crowd.
I think that’s how I’m going to start referring to those monsters: anti-marriage.
Knefel: Please don’t. Plenty of people are against the institution of marriage, for various reasons, without being bigots who want to deprive gay people of legal equality.
In response to another comment. See in context »“There was also a time when citizens would have voted to keep their slaves, and then later voted to keep white kids in white schools and black kids in black schools. That’s a good argument for why we shouldn’t allow proposition votes to dictate human rights matters, and why federal legislation is needed to protect civil liberties — including gay citizens’ rights to marry, raise families, and be left the hell alone.”
Ugh. So in protecting human rights/civil liberties, you’re willing to trample on the most fundamental human right of them all: the right to self-govern?
Some people will say the death penalty is against human rights, that wage slavery is against human rights, that imprisoning people for drug use is against human rights, some people will say indoctrinating children with religion is against human rights, that economic inequality is against human rights, and so on and so forth.
Democracy is merely the best way to settle these disputes. Sometimes democracy gets it wrong, but less than all the other forms of government.
With that said… the majority of the U.S. public, at least in states like Maine, support gay marriage. The problem is not that they voted against it, the problem is that not enough people voted — and because the bigoted elderly significantly outvote the more civilized youth. If we had mandatory voting, like some countries, then this wouldn’t happen. Better yet, but harder to pull off, if we had any resemblance to a democratic culture then this certainly wouldn’t happen.
Since we aren’t likely to get either of those things any time soon… the job is to convince people to change their minds… or wait for the elderly to die.