When President Obama was asked at a press conference this past week whether he wanted to clarify his confused stance on gay marriage -- refuse to defend the Defense of Marriage Act one day, refuse to endorse marriage equality the next -- he answered that he "was not going to make news on that today." Many people suspect that Obama really does favor gay marriage (he said as much years before running for president), but that his cold political calculation is that a public statement in support of the freedom to marry could hurt him in the 2012 election. Last week, one might have been forgiven for thinking that Obama's record of political achievements, from healthcare reform to Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, warranted giving him the benefit of the doubt.
July 4, however, casts Obama's position in a new light. Independence Day is a day commemorating the boldness of our founders, whose Revolution was anything but a foreordained victory. Despite the substantial risks to them personally -- up to forty percent of colonists were opposed to independence and King George would surely have beheaded each and every one of the Declaration of Independence's signors for their treason -- they chose July 4, 1776 to stand up for their deepest held values.
July 4, in other words, is a day for making news.
Some people are beginning to question whether Obama's political calculation is correct on its own terms. With polls now showing gay marriage to have majority support and one key faction of the Republican coalition -- the Wall Street crowd -- now favoring equal rights, Obama may be forsaking a potent wedge issue he could use to split the opposition. Perhaps these critics are right, although Obama is probably focused on how coming out in favor of gay marriage would impact voters in swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
Yet from the perspective of July 4, this kind of political balancing looks petty. The issues at stake in the gay marriage debate are too important, too central to our identity as Americans, to leave to an electoral abacus.
The Declaration of Independence famously announced that all people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Gay people in America, however, cannot fully enjoy these rights. They don't have the "liberty" that heterosexuals have to enter into state-sanctioned unions and start families with the people they love. The overwhelming majority of heterosexuals recognize that marriage is central to their self-fulfillment and contentment, as evidenced by the joys associated with wedding days and the continued embrace of marriage even among those whose previous efforts ended in divorce. Simply put, the freedom to marry is a cornerstone of the pursuit of happiness.
The founders did not recognize the importance of gay marriage -- or even the nature of homosexuality itself -- but that shouldn't prevent us from insisting upon marriage equality. The story of the unalienable rights identified by the founders is one of continual expansion to include more and more people deserving of those liberties. When Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, wrote the Declaration, its promise was denied to the vast majority of people on our shores: women, slaves, free blacks, and Native Americans. Over the past two centuries, however, we've found that American ideals are only made stronger by including an ever larger portion of We the People.
Today we stand at a crossroads. Will we allow gays and lesbians to finally become full partners in the American experiment, or will we continue to repress and discriminate against them?
That is the question Americans, especially President Obama, must ask. Like the founders, we should not determine the answer by looking at polling results or pondering how it will affect the next election. We should ask instead what our answer means for our core principles. We should ask how we can live up to the spirit of '76.
On July 4, merely to ask the question is to know the answer. Mr. President, your countrymen are waiting.
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Justice Kennedy make this legal fact absolutely clear in the first paragraph of Lawrence v the State of Texas (2003). Nonetheless almost all "Gay" leader push a Group Rights Agenda and most Gays are too uneducated to know by screaming Equality, they are saying, "Deprive me of my individual unalienable and constitutional rights and treat me as a member of a Group."
Whenever a large number of individual are placed into a Group and then denied their individual liberties based on that "group identification," those people should rise up and proclaim that the group classification is un-American and a deprivation of their individual rights under the declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
The claim to Equality is extremely harmful to Gays. It says that our individuality as separate persons with our own individual merit is irrelevant and instead our rights as based upon our being assigned to some arbitrary Group.
"Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (14th Amendment text)
The word "equal" is clearly in there and thus we can say without a doubt that equality is a Constitutional Right. QED.
The only substantial, rational reason for the institution of marriage is to establish and maintain stable nuclear familes for reproduction and child-rearing. Take away that purpose and marriage is an unintelligible artifact.
Family structure has been weakened over the past fifty years to the point where more than half of children are now born out of wedlock, with enormous social costs. The responsibility and cost of raising children is largely shifting from biological parents to the state, and I defy any gay rights advocate to make the case that this is a good thing for individuals or society at large.
"Same-sex marriage" will finish the job of making marriage devoid of purpose of meaning. Some proponents fully understand this, of course, and actively work towards this result, because their long-term goal is to do away with biological familes. The remainder are well-meaning but naive people who don't understand any good or value beyond a mindless pursuit of "fairness."
http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm
While it's well and good to believe that marriage is all about having and raising kids, you need to remember that all that is, is your belief. Marriage is many things to many people...You don't get to define it just because you consider yourself to be morally (or however) superior to those you'd deny the same rights to.
Until the government stops giving special treatment to people who are married, EVERYONE has the right to be married. You have the right to be offended, but not to keep rights away from a class of citizen because you object to their existence.
Hopefully you can come up with some reason besides "increasing homosexuals' self-respect."
But, most of all, this whole issue is about equality before the law. I'm for it, CCR isn't.
When the government says individuals who are labeled gay may not serve in the military or may not decide whom they wish to marry, our individual liberties are violated. Stop imposing Group Liabilities upon us and will the so-called Gay Leadership stop trying to obtain Group Rights.
I am an individual American and I want my individual liberties and I do not want any type of special right by being assigned to the group GAY and more than I wish my individual liberties to be abridge by my being assigned to any group, e.g. GAY.
Group rights and Group liabilities are un-American and as a Gay person, I oppose both special liabilities and special rights based on the notion of Equality. The American value is Liberty!
I agree. You also think they should Not be to closely related ? I also agree with That. So ah...why is it that you apparently don't think , one of them should at least be a Man and one a Woman ? If Two guys or Two women want to inter into a Legal agreement that they will love, Cherish,,ect, each other for the rest of their lives ...There Never was a Law that said they Couldn't. They can even be related if they want ! Ha. To be Legal they do have to be of a certain age.
I didn't ask you to *care,* I asked you to treat me as an *equal American.*
Hail Liberty.
"If you don't LIKE the News, go out and MAKE some of your OWN!"
Government is the entity that stops gays from having equal PROTECTION.
Get them out and let people take care of themselves.
There is a right to procreation; that is the purpose (but not a requirement of) marriage. Gays as a class cannot procreate. Therefore gays do not have a valid purpose in marrying.
Marriage confers many benefits. The benefits are to encourage and facilitate procreation. To expand marriage benefits to a class of persons that cannot procreate would dilute and thereby weaken marriage.
Come on, man. Just a little logic goes a very long way.
Cheers, Joe Mustich
(Gay) Justice of the Peace, and Universal Life Minister,
Red Studio Farm, Washington Green, CT USA
DOMA's already Unconstitutional, it just hasn't been ruled so.
I agree which is why my VA concealed carry permit must be recognized wherever I travel in the US.
I know you agree with that..........right?
Each time gays have met the new hurdles created by conservatives, they have moved the bar ever higher.