Connecticut Conservative

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Gay Marriage Legislation Is a Mistake

The efforts of gay rights advocates to legalize gay marriage here in Connecticut have been covered extensively in the news lately. Supporters plan on introducing a bill this year and using vast amounts of money to sway the opinions of the public and legislators. However, this is a large mistake, and I believe these efforts will be futile.

Aside from the political problems that I have with such a bill, there are large strategical ones for introducing such a bill now. The advocates think that following the civil union law, which was passed two years ago, will give them momentum. Instead, I think people are tired of the ceaseless attempts to bring so-called gay rights back into the news. Gay marriages are now effectively equivalent to regular marriage in the state, with both being granted equal state rights. Trying to argue for a new term for civil unions, especially so soon after the last bill was passed, will be looked at as a foolish attempt focused on minutia.

Next, there still is a Republican governor, and as liberal as Gov. Rell is, she would never sign a gay marriage bill as long as she considers herself a Republican. The legislator has essential no chance at overturning a veto by Gov. Rell, so the overall attempt is merely a waste of time.

After this effort, Connecticut residents will be very much tired and annoyed by the constant barrage of news about gay marriage, and the gay marriage advocates will be unable to bring back such legislation for at least several years, probably until the governor is a Democrat.

9 Comments:

Marriage, a religious institution?

Somebody please help me understand why marriage by many is considered a religious institution. For the sake of discussion I would like someone to tell me why atheists are then eligible for marriage? It seems to me that heterosexual marriages are afforded just about any opportunity and environment they choose to take their vows. They can choose a church marriage, they can get married underwater, on a mountaintop, by a justice of the peace, by a ship captain and the most beautiful and holy place I can imagine to pledge their vows of love and fidelity and the promise to be there through thick and thin, is driving through a drive-in chapel in Las Vegas, as one would order a family meal. The best part, no one has to even get out of the car and the best man and woman are readily available for one of the most holy of events in ones life; holy matrimony. Has it dawned on anyone that the constitution of the United States says very clearly that all people shall be treated as equal? There are no clauses added to that, such as, except gays and African Americans. What was stated in that document then still rings very clear yet today and likely for many years to come. We don’t have to look to awfully far back into our history to find examples of how we ignored the constitution for selfish heterosexual white Anglo-Saxon citizens. It wasn’t until the early part of the nineteenth century before woman were allowed to vote. Not so long before that it slavery was legal. It wasn’t until nearly fifty years ago that African Americans weren’t allowed to marry whites. If we are to learn anything from our countries history we should then know that whenever we veer off from what the beautifully crafted document we call our nations Constitution says, it is eventually changed for reasons of being unfair. Back to my original question, I am hoping someone can give me a valid reason to prevent any two people that love each other from having the right to marry. I have heard some reasons that make no sense to me. One being that if gays were allowed to marry it would have the impact of destroying traditional marriage. We only have to look at the statistics of the success of heterosexual marriages to discover that more than half end up in divorce. Gays did not cause that. Fidelity within marriage has a terrible track record as well. Therefore I would truly like to hear some reasonable argument posed that would make sense why gay marriage ought not to be allowed. Thank you, Aaron Jason Silver www.aaronjasonsilver.com; Fennville, Mi 49408

By aaronjasonsilver, at 11:05 AM
I am hoping someone can give me a valid reason to prevent any two people that love each other from having the right to marry.

It's tough to write legislation that defines what love is, don't you think? And I am not sure that is the business of govt. anyway.

By Anonymous, at 1:38 PM
I can agree that to call marriage a religious institution in the year 2007 is a joke. I think in Hollywood for example it is now considered a marketing tool.

I also think that love has very little to do with this issue. I have no interest in seeing our incompetent leadership in Hartford try to define what love is. They already clearly seem to have a real problem in understanding exactly what the definition of an honest balanced budget is, and no idea at all, of what honest budget surpluses are.

To me we have far greater issues that need the immediate attention of these guys. The gay marriage issue should be properly placed on the back burner in Hartford, and these guys should focus on the train wreck of fiscal mismanagement these guys are riding each day. That issue will affect 100% of us, gay or straight.

Instead of concerning themselves with a small percentage of us, they should concern themselves with all of us. But then that isn't as much fun is it???

By Anonymous, at 10:22 AM
Although I am a straight guy, I support gay marriage. If two people are actually happy with each other, leave them alone.

Although I am straight, I am against marriage. Seriously, who wants to be with just one person? If heterosexual challenged people want to get married and be unhappy like straight people, let them.

On a different note, I found this really cool blog site.

http://www.ctdemocratsblog.com
Connecticut Democrats
A Place For The Respectful Exchange of Ideas

Just keeping it real..

Karl
Northford, CT

By Anonymous, at 12:57 PM
The efforts of gay rights advocates to legalize gay marriage here in Connecticut have been covered extensively in the news lately.

So have the efforts to stop it. Your point?

Supporters plan on introducing a bill this year and using vast amounts of money to sway the opinions of the public and legislators. However, this is a large mistake, and I believe these efforts will be futile.

Again, those against have dumped large amounts of money into oposing it. So? Even more futile given the likelyhood that the courts will eventually grant gay and lesbians the right to marry.

Aside from the political problems that I have with such a bill, there are large strategical ones for introducing such a bill now. The advocates think that following the civil union law, which was passed two years ago, will give them momentum. Instead, I think people are tired of the ceaseless attempts to bring so-called gay rights back into the news.

It is not about momentum, it is about equality. There is the political problem. The only people that appear to be tired of it are the ones that are against it.

Gay marriages are now effectively equivalent to regular marriage in the state, with both being granted equal state rights. Trying to argue for a new term for civil unions, especially so soon after the last bill was passed, will be looked at as a foolish attempt focused on minutia.

This is not a fight about redefining "civil unions." It is about granting equal rights to marriage. Overlooking that fact would be looked at as a foolish attempt to ignore the big picture.

Next, there still is a Republican governor, and as liberal as Gov. Rell is, she would never sign a gay marriage bill as long as she considers herself a Republican. The legislator has essential no chance at overturning a veto by Gov. Rell, so the overall attempt is merely a waste of time.

I am sorry, but the Senate and the House are veto-proof. The Governor is at their mercy. To assume otherwise is a fallacy. That is not to say that all of the Democratic party will march in lockstep as the GOP usually does. But that is the reality. The other reality is that Rell is not a liberal. If she were, she would likely be in the Green party.

After this effort, Connecticut residents will be very much tired and annoyed by the constant barrage of news about gay marriage, and the gay marriage advocates will be unable to bring back such legislation for at least several years, probably until the governor is a Democrat.

After all of the effort to block it, the courts will eventually decide on the matter if it is not legislated... And a right that is not granted to all, and applied to all in an equal manner, will be frowned upon by any Justice that understands the laws that this country was built upon.

Why not save the state the time and trouble, not to mention the court costs, and simply make marriage an equal right for all?

Or are you afraid to take away that "political platform" to rally the troops for the GOP at a time when they very little else left to run on?

The GOP can no longer claim ethics, values, fiscal responsibility, being "protectors" in war, nor can very many of them claim to be conservative... All they appear to have left is anti-gay and anti-immigrant stances, and that won't win them jack.

BTW... Good luck on your move to CLP. It will be a very bumpy ride for you considering the general feelings about the GOP across Connecticut and the nation. heh

By Connecticut Man 1, at 1:10 AM
”http://online.logcabin.org/issues/gaymarriage.html”
Anyone here ever heard of the Log Cabin Republicans?

By Anonymous, at 1:06 PM
"Somebody please help me understand why marriage is by many is considered a religious institution."

A short history: In Europe marriage and divorce/enulments etc were for centuries in the legal realm of church courts. If you were in a Catholic country then you marriage was through the Church and the requirements for marriage were defined by that Church for all those who wished to marry in that country, the civil authorities had minimal interest in marriage. The same went for Lutheran countries and the Anglicans after the Reformation. The colonies were formed with an established religon that was official in each colony and marriage operated in much the same way that it did in Europe, there was an official religion and moral issues along with marriage fell under the jurisdiction of the official religion.

So when the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof." First it's important to note that the Federal Constitution was never intended to apply to state action. Thus, for many years after the Constitution was passed many states continued to have official state religions, in fact this clause preventing a national religion was intended to protect the state's rights to choose their official religions, as in the Holy Roman Empire after the Treaty of Westphalia each local prince was allowed to choose the official religion of his kingdom.

After states decided to allow free exercise of religion and then after the supreme court applied parts of the Federal Constitution to state action through the doctrine of selective incorporation the states were absolutely forced to provide autonomy to all the churches and free-exercise of all religions, regardless of what their state constitution said.

So thus, it is no longer possible for the states to in a sense outsource moral issues to a church court or council and thus what do we do with marriage?

Well one concern was economic, regarding estates and such, church law could not be used because different churches could have different traditions on inheritance and such, also the ability to tax has become much more efficient and, although seemingly contradictory, more complex. The government thought it beneficial to lighten the load on families with many children and to provide lower taxes for those who were married and had children.

The ability to raise children more easily is a basic incentive to have children who will eventually become memebers of the workforce and be taxed, so the return on investment for the government was (and continues to be) enormous.

The problem is that now the government had to enter into the arena of marriage because in order to provide tax credits or refunds you need a legal designation of who is receiving funds and who is not. So thus, government through trying to support families with children through provision of incentives has entered into legislation of morality, and ultimately down this path where gay couples who cannot have children will be getting the legal title of "marriage" and tax incentives that were originally created to help young couples start a family.

The secular creation of marriage is strictly speaking a legal way to privilege those who have children and to give them the economic means to raise them a little better. This economic conception of marriage is so distinctly American and so opposed to our history as part of western civilization. I think marriage should be dropped altogether from the law books and tax incentives should be given to those who have children and raise them or to those who adopt them.

On a side note, anyone who has followed the stories of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts and Great Britain knows that the only reason Gay rights groups want the legal definition of marriage is so that they can either force religious institutions who provide public services, such as adoption, to provide them against their will to Gay couples, or ultimately if they will not comply with their gay agenda, force them out of providing such services and marginalize their influence in the public arena.

This tactic seems to be a direct contradiction of the "free exercise thereof" part of the Constitution but since religious charitable organizations don't have the legal funds that gay activist groups have we'll have to wait until someone finally raises the money to challenge such laws in the courts.

By Anonymous, at 4:01 PM
Well Sean, as liberal as YOU ARE, I am surprised you would be against equal rights.

Waste of time? Was the fight giving women the right to vote a waste of time? It took them decades of lobbying to get that right in 1919.

I find it a crying shame it took so long.

What about the rights of Blacks? It was not until 1964 that a real civil rights bill was finally passed.

Was it a waste of time to talk about civil rights in say 1960?

Was Rosa Parks just some upstart who didn't know her place in society?

Don't tell me it’s not the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

By mccommas, at 11:25 AM
The bottom line for the gay marriage agenda is eradicating religious institution and God from our society. As a previous post stated, religious freedom is a thing of the past in Great Britain and Canada. In April, religious private schools will not be able to teach true tenets of the church because it's againt the law. Parents have already had thier rights stripped in Massachusettes as far as what the kids are mandated to be taught k on up. The option: take your kid out of the public school system. I'm sure the ciriculums of the private schools will be targeted next, as it is in Canada. Citizens ought to wake up in this state and country and fight gay marriage as if their basic constitutional freedoms, religion and free speech dependended on it, because it does!

By Anonymous, at 9:56 AM