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Blerg.
I've been trying to write something about the backlash against black communities in California and beyond regarding Prop 8, but my brain is going fuzzy. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ojouchan and I had a really fun day in Chinatown and Olvera Street, and I'm bushed. Here are links instead:
ojouchan and I had a really fun day in Chinatown and Olvera Street, and I'm bushed. Here are links instead:- sparkymonster's "Brown People Did Not Pass Prop. 8" was the first place I really saw the meme.
- bellatrys's "California Dreamin'/On Such A Winter's Day*" has some good links to Kos Diaries and an overview of the red state of California.
- kittikattie's "Stop blaming PoC for Cali's Prop 8" rounds up the LJ.
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Should one generalize? Heavens no. (I'm guessing that, say, ojouchan's Christian faith didn't influence her to vote for Prop 8.) I agree that generalizing is racist; by no means should there be a backlash.
But there is at least some factual basis here. As always, facts are what you make of them; if what someone makes of the fact that black people favored Proposition 8 is that black people are evil/bad/stupid, then that someone is an idiot. One should perhaps instead make of this fact the realization that opponents of Prop8 didn't do as good a job as they should of reaching out to the black community. (It was Rachel Maddow, I think, who suggested that the No-on-Prop-8 folks should have stressed the connection to Loving v. Virginia.)
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I really, really, really wish, instead of making thinly debatable arguments about equal-protection (i.e. speciously claiming that the denial of marriage across races (a distinction the law specifically forbids) has resurrected itself in the denial of marriage within a gender (a distinction the law recognizes frequently)), you'd just accept that a significant proportion of the population simply understands that, without passing a damning judgment on one side or the other, a relationship based on the complementary nature of the sexes is substantially different from one contained within a gender. Men are different from women. That's not bias, that's biology. And you know it.
If you think I don't want the same-sex community to be happy, you are mistaken. But the same-sex community has no claim to thousands of years of the tradition of marriage, and should own up to this. If, a thousand years from now, same-sex couples look back on 2008 as the year the same-sex communities of the U.S. began their own tradition of covenants under the law, that would be great. Or, should yet another state (30 of 30 thus far) reject the notion that any loving relationship is tantamount to traditional marriage, feel free to disinvite me from of the pity party.
While, sadly, some percentage of them do, 52% of Californians DO NOT hate gays and lesbians. Instead of trying to reconcile the viewpoint of a consistent majority of Americans with a desire for the state governments of this country, one way or another, to declare avowed same-sex relationships of equal value to heterosexual ones, let's cultivate the already strong majority of the people wishing to give governmental recognition to same-sex relationships into a super-majority that sweeps the land. Nearly all, if not all, of the states of the union see the value in granting incentives to same-sex partners in exchange for them pledging to stay together -- incentives which would be similar, if not identical, to the benefits of marriage. Those that don't yet will soon do so. This truly inevitable covenant will lack the millenia of tradition, but not the respect, of today's marriage. The sooner we start, the better.
Meanwhile, instead of kicking my ass for daring to offer the consistent, unbiased viewpoint of the majority of the state/country, maybe you could get that smug s.o.b. Gavin Newsom to STFU. If you don't think a not unsubstantial group of Californians voted for Prop 8 just to contravene that clown, you are very wrong.
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(OK, I take that back. I feel a great deal of irritation at the proponents of Prop 8 who outright lied in their ads by claiming that (a) churches would be forced to marry same-sex couples or (b) children would be forced to learn about same-sex couples in school. To stress the point: I direct animus at particular people or institutions for their dishonest actions, not for their votes, and certainly not simply because they are Mormon/Catholic/Orthodox/black/whatever.)
That's the primary thing that needs to be said. Facts may be observed (blacks/Christians/gays/etc. tended to vote one way or another, or didn't show a pattern), but the entire point of Tablesaw's post, and my agreement with it, was that there shouldn't be any ill will directed at any group, and I dislike your implication that we think there should be.
With that out of the way—and, Tablesaw, this is your LJ, feel free to delete my comment if I'm taking unwelcome advantage of your hospitality—your actual arguments against same-sex marriage are unconvincing.
To begin with, social change often requires overriding a misled majority: a significant proportion of the Southern population of the 1800s simply understood that black people were inferior and slavery was acceptable. It didn't matter what they believed; slavery was a violation of the fundamental American principle of equal protection under the law. That's what's at issue here; one kind of couple is being denied a right given to another kind of couple, and is therefore not being given equal protection.
What you're left with are two false premises. The first is that marriage has "thousands of years [of] tradition", as if it has remained fundamentally unchanged during that time (see this article (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050506-000006.html) for a very quick overview). It's not even true in the Christian tradition that marriage has always been between one man and one woman: our modern sense of what's covered by the word "marriage" doesn't include a man marrying two different women at the same time and fathering children by their handmaidens.
(To be honest, since what we're talking about is essentially "what can the word 'marriage' be used to cover", it's worth noting that the OED has examples going back to the 1400s concerning the marriage between body and spirit, between Witte and Science, between the head and the body, verse and tune, the artistic and the efficient, veal and lobster.... I know, there's some sense in which this is "not the same thing"—but the point is that the word has always covered the bringing together of two things besides a man and a woman, so why not this as well?)
The second false premise is that, because men are different from women, "a relationship based on the complementary nature of the sexes is substantially different from one contained within a gender". I genuinely know of no way at all in which the relationship of my uncles Robert and Howard is different from the relationship between myself and my wife. Well, no, that's not true—theirs is a wholly different relationship. I dare say, though, that George and Laura Bush have a very different relationship than my wife and I do, and that Bill and Hillary Clinton have a different relationship from either. But none of our differences have anything to do with the biological sex of the people involved. How, exactly, is my relationship with my wife different from my uncle Robert's relationship with Howard?
Ultimately, the comparison to Loving v. Virginia is not, to my mind, specious at all. There was a time when the state felt that a relationship between a white man and a black woman was considered an affront to G-d and Nature ("the fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix", as the original judge put it), whereas now we know otherwise. This is a time when some states feel that a relationship between two men is an affront to G-d and Nature. Some of us know otherwise.
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* I've actually read the words "Too bad California is 51% full of homophobic bigots" online, written by someone I know, and it made me cringe.
* I don't find the second premise to be clearly true or clearly false. It seems to me to be strictly speaking unprovable one way or the other, and your comments reflect that.
* When same-sex marriage became legal in Manitoba, I remember that there was at least talk of provincial marriage commissioners being forced to marry same-sex couples, even if it went against their own personal convictions, rather than referring the couples to a different commissioner. Unfortunately, I don't remember how that worked out, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to research.
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And as for the third, there's a stark difference between the state requiring churches to perform certain kinds of marriages and the state requiring state employees to perform certain kinds of marriages.
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As for the rest: I look forward to reading your response to how his uncles' relationship substantially differs from his own with his wife. I expect that it will boil down to "But...but...it does!" Unless you can answer that question more convincingly than that, then perhaps you need to take the advice you give to Mayor Newsom.
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2. Arguing that tradition alone is enough reason to do anything is absurd. It is extremely easy to find examples of traditions that are harmful and should not be followed. E.g. some aspects of gender roles, typical American eating habits.
3. Furthermore, if something is against your tradition and doesn't otherwise affect you in any way, the correct response is to CHOOSE NOT TO DO IT YOURSELF, not to dictate to other people how they should act.
4. Similarly, a majority's belief in something clearly does not necessarily make that thing right. And as others have pointed out, that majority is dwindling rapidly and will likely become a minority in 20 years, since it has a very clear age-based component.
5. Citing the fact that some laws don't support same-sex marriage to support your claim that laws shouldn't support same-sex marriage is a canonical logical fallacy.
6. The fact that there are biological differences between the sexes is irrelevant to the question of whether same-sex marriage should be legal.
7. Your claim that you would like the gay community to be happy is undermined by the entire rest of your post. You cannot deny a right to people who aren't doing you any harm, for reasons that boil down to illogic, and then claim not to have anything against them.
The rest of my thoughts have been censored out of respect for
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2. The "tradition" to which I refer is the original meanings of the statutes, which themselves are based on millennia of marriage. The words don't change meaning just because people's general perceptions change. The marriage statute was not discriminatory in intent when it was written, which means it's not discriminatory now. Deficient, maybe, but not discriminatory. Admittedly, this is me attempting to make an originalist argument, but there's nothing inherently wrong with originalist arguments.
3. I am free to have as much say in the direction of this country as you or anybody else. Furthermore, your argument applies equally to deplorable relationships as to same-sex ones. Any hypothetical vote of mine in favor of Prop 8 would be strictly on practical terms (see below) and a vote for judicial restraint.
4. I have no beef with the majority coming around to support same-sex marriage. I do believe that the conditions could not possibly have been better than they were this election (progressive state, progressive ticket landslide, plenty of monetary support and star-power), but whatever. There's something to also be said for the progressive-to-conservative impulse seen over the years, but we'll see.
5. Nowhere did I claim the laws should or shouldn't necessarily support same-sex marriage. The claim by California jurists is that the present laws *do* (not *should*) support the inclusion of same-sex couples into the institution of marriage. I wholeheartedly disagree, which I feel is based in logic.
6. The fact that there are (governmentally-recognized) biological differences between the sexes is entirely relevant to the question of whether same-sex marriage follows logically from the present law.
7. I feel typical marriage statutes (which I'm assuming is the case for CA) have not been written in a way to include two individuals of the same sex in a single covenant. The overreach of the judicial branches in a handful of states (flatly wrong, IMO) has led to a barrage of states changing their Constitutions to explicitly prevent this from ever happening, which has ABSOLUTELY not led to anything but hurt for the same-sex community and those who are on their side. 30 states are now explicit in their opposition to same-sex marriage, and you have the judges in Massachusetts and California to thank.
In my opinion, CONTINUING ALONG THIS PATH WILL ONLY LEAD TO MORE HEARTBREAK, certainly in the near-term. The surest way to avoid this from happening in another dozen states would be to not pursue same-sex marriage through litigation, but instead to set up a parallel institution of honorable domestic partnerships (which could *only* be entered by same-sex couples) with the same tangible benefits as marriage. There is no second-class citizenship. There is no stigma. There is no inequity. People in committed relationships will be able to gain the governmental recognition they deserve and the rights they desire. In my opinion, the longer this path is avoided, the more disappointment members of the same-sex community will have to endure. And to what end, exactly?
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anybody would want to endure this hardship for, say, another generation (and maybe more), when (what appears to me is) the desired outcome is there for the taking right now. So I work to convince anyone who will listen that the best plan isn't to antagonize the religious and pretend there is anything more than a few isolated incidents over the history of civilization (thanks for the link, tahnan) where marriage included members of the same-sex.
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@tahnan: You are right that this thread is lacking animus directed at religious/ethnic groups. But we both know you needn't look very hard to find it elsewhere. And furthermore, there is a common perception that the Black community has an anti-gay contingent -- not that they were hoodwinked by Yes on 8 ads, but that this has been around for awhile. The votes reflect this as well. I shouldn't have implied that animus was going to be directed at any group in this thread. But it's not an uncommon occurrence among those who bring up the Black vote for Prop 8.
(As an aside -- he's exceptional in every way, but our President-elect also has come out against same-sex marriage (although he was also against Prop 8). Any thoughts here?)
@tahnan: The Loving decision kinda strikes me as a simple corollary to the Civil Rights movement, rather than a key step in it. Put another way -- if the Justices had ruled that interracial relationships were, in fact, substantially different from intra-racial ones -- and yet they should be protected anyhow -- that would be one thing. But no, they just concluded that interracial relationships were not substantially different from the others (err...didn't they?) because people of different races are not substantially different from one another (a new view, long overdue in 1967). So I don't see why it applies here. I see why the No on 8 folks lament not referring to it more often in their outreach to the Black community, but I think it fails to be relevant after scrutiny.
@tahnan: I don't know you well, and I don't know your wife nor either of your uncles at all. Still, I'm guessing the substantive difference I'd probably deduce is that your wife is a woman (in a relationship with a man), while your uncles are both male. I won't even offer a guess as to the sexuality of any of the four individuals, and believe the government has no business asking about that either. But our government bean-counters care who's a man and who's a woman, and the original intent of the marriage laws reflected this. So I'll ask you: in what way should the law view the two relationships as the same? Does the government recognize love? You are right that your relationship with your wife is different from that of the Bushes. And yet you're both united under the same covenant. What do you think the government saw that (you/your wife) and (the Bushes) had in common?
@tahnan: You're right, "to marry" has lots of different applications; I happen to think this leftover Halloween Take 5 candy perfectly marries some of my favorite snacks together. I believe the original intent of the statute trumps the OED.
@qaqaq: By "consistent majority", I was referring to the 30-of-30 (after Arizona's reversal) record of same-sex marriage defeats across the nation, all of which (I believe) required a (super)majority vote. I think New York may favor it, but otherwise, 52-48 in California is almost certainly a floor of support for marriage amendments. I would imagine it's somewhere in the 61-39 range of Florida, on average, nationally.
@qaqaq: Also, since you asked me to state what difference I see between tahnan's two examples of relationships, I will respectfully ask you my analogous question: what substantive difference is there between (a theoretical parallel, dignified domestic partnership institution directed explicitly towards same-sex couples) and (the inclusion of same-sex couples in the institution of marriage)? Is it a fear that not all of the same rights will be conveyed, or is it something more?
@tablesaw: Thanks for hosting this discussion and not smacking me down (yet). :)
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Now, as to the other two main points:
The Loving decision was a "corollary to the Civil Rights movement" in the sense that the Civil Rights movement was a corollary to the 14th Amendment. To quote Warren's (unanimous) decision:
That is to say, the Supreme Court very specifically decided that anti-miscegenation laws violate the Fourteenth Amendment, i.e., equal protection. The question was not at all the nature of interracial marriages as opposed to same-race marriages; the issue was that "[u]nder our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State". That's why it's very much relevant to the question of gay marriage, which is also a matter of the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of the same gender, which should also reside with the individual without being infringed by the State.
Then, regarding your apparent response to my question about Robert and Howard: your original claim, the one I disputed, was that "a relationship based on the complementary nature of the sexes is substantially different from one contained within a gender". You haven't in fact backed that up, so I'll ask again. In what sense is the relationship between Robert and Howard substantially different from the one between me and my wife? To make it more explicit, perhaps: in what way would the relationship between me and my wife be substantially different if I were female and we were lesbians?
While awaiting that, I'll go ahead and explain that the answer to "in what way should the law view the two relationships as the same?" is "in all ways"; I'm not even certain I understand in what way the law shouldn't.
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I will submit that the reason the 14th Amendment applied in Loving is because, in not so many words, people of all races are treated exactly the same under the law. To extend this to claim people of all genders are treated exactly the same under the law is not as direct as you suggest: Title IX, for example. If it should be changed, that's one thing. I don't believe it's a necessary, legal conclusion from Loving.
To clarify my question "in what way should the law...": barring the standard restrictions, marriage, in not so many words, is presently defined (in my eyes) as requiring (1) two people of (2) opposite sex. It sounds as if (1) is, in fact, "all ways", unless you think there's something more required of couples in a world where same-sex marriage exists under the law (which I think was really what I was asking). Is there?
Unless there's more than (1) at work in a world of "marriage equality", it just sounds to me like the mechanism to get from here to there results in a (de jure) unisex society. This seems like a large price to pay when there's another way.
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Thank you. By repeatedly refusing to answer a direct request to justify your statement, and instead trying to deflect it with an unrelated question, you have made it clear that you have no actual desire to discuss this topic, and are instead going to cling to flawed reasoning as if your life depends upon it.
I will take a moment to patiently explain that the question you ask is in fact meaningless, insofar as you're trying to use sophistry to disguise a shift in semantics. To decide whether coed schools are "different" from single-sex schools depends entirely on what metric of similarity you're using. In the sense that their students have different sexes, then yes, of course they're different; in the sense that a school should cover English, math, science, foreign languages, art, and so forth, no, they're no different at all. (Unless you're arguing that an all-girls school should skip those topics in favor of cooking, cleaning, and mothering, in which case, G-d bless you.)
Analogously: are my wife and I "different"? Well, duh. One of us is male, the other female; one is taller than the other, one has longer hair, one weighs more, one has hairy toes.... But are we different when compared to a rock? Surely not; we both breathe, have hair, have limbs, think, talk, and so forth. And then the crucial question for the sake of this discussion: does the law consider us different, regarding our rights (to vote, to hold public office, to enter into legal contracts, to hold a job, and so on)? And the answer to that has to be a resounding "no, we are not different". That's the fundamental principle of the 14th Amendment.
That's the basis for my asking, repeatedly, what this "substantial difference" is between heterosexual and homosexual couples. Obviously, there are superficial differences (gender makeup) and superficial similarities (each contains two people). The question before the law is this: if they are to be treated differently, and not given equal protection and equal rights, it must be because there is a genuine, substantial difference between the two; so what is that difference?
Your claim was that such a difference exists. You continually refuse to provide that difference. To be honest, I think that's because you are simply unable to, because no such difference exists. And I've pretty much had it with your evasive, dishonest, and illogical arguments.
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I'm a little surprised it took multiple posts for my clear answer of "One has opposite sexes involved and one doesn't" to register. That's it! That's the only difference I claim.
It appears you see "gender makeup" as a superficial difference. I don't. The law doesn't. A humongous majority of the civilized world doesn't. 3 year-old children don't.
The government frequently recognizes the difference in genders (of individuals) as a significant difference, and by extension is within its right to reach the same conclusion when viewing same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. At least, that's my argument. Do you disagree with the premise (governments distinguish between men and women) or with the conclusion (extending this from one person to two people is unfounded)?
If you wanna call it quits, please do so. Better that than some more rich talk about how dishonest and evasive I'm being.
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Your never gave that so-called "clear answer". You danced around it, perhaps, but I'm not here to read your mind.
The bottom line, as I said above, and have attempted to say throughout, is that when it comes to relationships, the sameness or difference in sexes of the people involved is no more relevant than the sameness or difference in race, religion, height, or any other damned thing. It just plain isn't: biological sex might be an easy way to distinguish two people that even three-year-olds can use, but so are all the other factors, and they just don't matter when one is talking about the right of two people to commit to one another.
And once again, the so-called "logic" you use to get from "the government recognizes the difference of gender in individuals in certain cases" to "governments are free to distinguish people based on sex" to "relationships are a case where governments are free to distinguish based on sex" is so deeply invalid that it's almost indescribable. It's like saying "soccer players are free to pick up the ball in certain cases; thus, soccer players have the ability to pick up the ball; thus, a halfback has the ability to pick up the ball". It's...that's it. That's all I've got.
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Why is race different than sex in this case? They are both inborn. They both fundamentally shape the way the individual is treated by others. They both have nothing whatsoever to do with an individual's ability to develop and maintain a long term, stable relationship with another person and to provide a caring, loving environment for children to grow up in.
Sure, same sex marriages are different than opposite sex ones - often in many fundamental ways. Mixed race marriages are different than same race marriages as well. Both of these things create tensions where a same raced, heterosexual couple would not have them. But same raced, heterosexual couples, have different problems that other shapes of marriage do not.
What I want to know is why is it right to allow civil rights to be put up for a vote? Imagine the results of the 1870s if each state had their own referendum on slavery! Or in the 1950s, if school intergration and separate water fountains had been put up for a vote? These were not popular court decisions. To use your words, "humongous majorities" of the countries were opposed. But they were right.
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The "nine ways" you mention above, if significant enough, would be enough for me to give up on this middle-ground argument I claim to make. However, I don't see how they could not possibly be overcome so that the only difference is that couples will belong to separate institutions. If what I've found is indeed the exhaustive list, these nine ways come from the fact that current domestic partnership law in California is unmatched in some states, which (along with DOMA) would be irrelevant in the multi-state (not sure how "multi" at this time -- but a significant number) domestic partnership scenario I propose is there for the taking, with unanimity not far behind.
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But it's also possible that you're asking about my decision to listen to what gay men and women feel is in their best interests. And I will tell you, without irony or reservation, that it's working out fan-fucking-fabulous-tastically, and I once again urge you to try doing so.
And with that, I'm closing things off. I'm sorry if you intended to respond again to
You've been asked several times to support your arguments directly, and generally make your arguments more coherent, but instead the responses have gone further and further afield. Some of those who have engaged you have become frustrated with your refusal to abandon sophistry and match the more robust mode of argument they presented. And while I agree with them, from my own perspective, you've done the worst thing you can do on this journal: you have bored its owner.
At this point, I see in the future only an endless stream of the same evasions, producing no further worthwhile dialogue, so I'm freezing the thread. Although I believe the previous e-mails may hold some static interest, I have no desire to prolong this particular discourse, or to see anyone else continue it in this journal.
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California's numbers may be a floor now (though I bet if you asked Massachusetts right now we'd be well into the favorable side, and Connecticut rejected the chance to prevent same-sex marriages 59-41) but it's clearly changing. Florida's numbers today are almost exactly California's numbers 8 years ago when Prop. 22 passed, which indicates rapid change toward support for same-sex marriages. Anti-marriage amendments are winning by smaller and smaller margins.
This brings me to another point: a key factor in these improving margins is the simple fact that having same-sex marriage in Massachusetts hasn't had any of the disastrous effects predicted by conservatives. The "honorable domestic partnership" approach would simply imply that a separate but equal arrangement is acceptable.
(frozen comment) Your argument is extremely truthy
I never said you weren't. (Although I do think that voting for something solely for religious reasons boils down to legislating your particular religion, which is incredibly inappropriate in a secular, multi-religion democracy.) I said you are making a transparently terrible argument WRT tradition, which you are still doing.
The marriage statute was not discriminatory in intent when it was written, which means it's not discriminatory now.
The law applies the same to everyone, so there is no equal protection argument.
The fact that there are (governmentally-recognized) biological differences between the sexes is entirely relevant to the question of whether same-sex marriage follows logically from the present law.
You appear to lack a basic understanding of what you are talking about. That, or you're intentionally ignoring certain facts so you can oppose same-sex marriage and still feel like a good person. I will delete all further comment notifications from you.
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1. "...there is no person in this country that I can marry that any other male (of any sexuality) cannot. That, to me, is equal protection." What you just described is in fact exactly not equal protection. If you had said "no job I can hold that any other male cannot", it would be a blatantly obvious violation of the 14th Amendment on grounds of gender: equal protection requires replacing "male" with "person". And so in your original statement: you have the right to marry Mary Cheney, but a woman doesn't have that right, and that right there is a denial of equal protection.
2. Saying "The marriage statute was not discriminatory in intent when it was written, which means it's not discriminatory now" pretty much undermines your claim to the statement that you're heavy on logic. It doesn't remotely matter whether a policy is discriminatory in intent; it matters whether the policy is discriminatory in practice. (See Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yick_Wo_v._Hopkins), in which a San Francisco law, which the city argued was passed for other reasons, was struck down on the basis of its discriminatory effects; see also poll taxes.)
"The claim by California jurists is that the present laws *do* (not *should*) support the inclusion of same-sex couples into the institution of marriage" is simply false. The claim by California jurists is that present laws (as of May 2008) do not support this, but that these laws violate the California constitution (key line: "the language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union 'between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute").
And finally, if the message you took away from the Psychology Today link I provided was "see, marriage has practically never included same-sex couples", then your reading comprehension is as flawed as your logic. There is no tradition of marriage over millennia; the concept of marriage has changed frequently. Our so called "traditional marriage" laws in no way enshrine the virtues of adultery with prostitutes or mistresses, forced marriage arrangements, lack of divorce, to say nothing of the wide variety of cultures that did, and do, practice polygamy.
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2. Indeed, I was sloppy (not for the first time!) with the line you quote. However, while race is a protected class, sexual preference is not (at least universally). Also, if "it doesn't remotely matter whether a policy is discriminatory in intent; it matters whether the policy is discriminatory in practice", then how do you explain Washington v. Davis? A possibly mitigating distinction (relevant here) between the two cases is that the marriage law, for all it's possible faults now, almost certainly was not written merely so that homosexuals would be excluded.
I fail to see how poll taxes apply here, as the country went ahead and amended the Constitution to make them illegal.
(3). So noted.
(4). Centuries then? You call it. Are you saying there's no meaningful tradition of marriage in California/the US/western civilization?
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My own understanding (which I cannot factually support without access to my employer's law library) is that one of the main reasons that the Family Code looks this way is due to efforts to eliminate sexism in marriage. Great efforts have been made to ensure that the two parties of a marriage are equal in every way, to the point that the gender of any particular one is irrelevant. This itself is a departure from older law, where the roles of men and women were written more directly into the law. Specifically, the woman was explicitly subordinate to the man, and her body was the property of her husband. This resulted in the condoning of many horrific practices, such as the "spousal exception to rape," according to which it is impossible for a husband to rape his wife—an exception which was written into the laws of this country until very recently. (This is one of the reasons you've been pressed to elaborate your argument with regard to "traditional" or "original" constructions of marriage, and also why I questioned your "complementary nature of the sexes" argument above.)
But more importantly, this is the most concrete example of a pattern of problems you seem to have understanding the law you purport to interpret. The law is based on the legislation of statutes and the interpretation through case law. Your extreme ignorance of both obliterates any claim to "logic" you purport to apply to or derive from them. As a result, your claims to knowledge of "the original meanings of the statutes, which themselves are based on millennia of marriage" appear to be wholly unfounded. Until you acquaint yourself somewhat with the actual law, your "logic" will be lacking.The tone of your argument in this regard seems to be extremely patronizing. As the people in the position to experience the stigma, inequity, and second-class citizenship under a heteronormative culture and legal system, it is the members of the queer minority who can best evaluate which proposals will bring them toward equality, not members of the straight majority. They are also the ones to decide what to do about any "heartbreak" might arise from this struggle, and to put that heartbreak in the context of the heartbreak dealt by other current and historical oppression. They would also likely disagree that your plan would offer them "the rights they desire," since they have made it fairly clear, in several different venues, that one of the rights they desire is the right to marry, a right your plan specifically and deliberately denies.
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I'd also ask why you repeatedly describe same-sex nonmarriages as "covenants." It seems to indicate a theological position, which would not have a logical place in an argument of secular law. The common legal position is that marriages are civil contracts (though treated differently than commercial contracts), not covenants.
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Feel free to keep smacking down ZD, I won't have a chance until I'm back from hiking.
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http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8077
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8009
Meanwhile, at the very least, younger people generally voted against Prop 8, in general, which is sort of hopeful for the future.
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The problem is there are too damn many things to vote about on the CA ballot; people who feel strongly about something will seek it out, and most of the rest will go oh whatever and just vote for president and leave the booth. Something that will get preached about in church is likely to get people to remember to vote on that item, but I don't know enough about the CA vote to say whether churchgoing made the difference.
Sometimes, democracy really is 4 wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
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Assuming that every voter who entered a booth did vote for president (since I can't find a total-ballot number), there was an average of six percent of voters who didn't vote for a proposition. The highest retention was with prop 8, with less than one percent of voters leaving it blank. The lowest was the rather opaque redistricting plan of Prop 11, which was ignored by over ten percent of voters.