In 1854 Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the New York legislature, saying:
[I]f you regard marriage as a civil contract, then let it be subject to the same laws which control all other contracts. Do not make it a half-human, half-divine institution, which you may build up but cannot regulate. Do not, by your special legislation for this one kind of contract, involve yourselves in the grossest absurdities and contradictions.
Her statement, in response to the deplorable inequities women endured in her day, is pertinent today as the nation struggles with marriage equality for same-sex couples. Lucid and direct, her words, spoken more than 150 years ago, are more progressive than those of our modern-day politicians. These politicians, swayed by pressure from the religious right, are ignoring basic justice for political gain.
President Obama states that his views on same-sex marriage are "evolving." This is insulting. He is undergoing no such evolution. He is waiting until the climate allows for a politician to support same-sex marriage without negative repercussions in the voting booth. While he bides his time to ensure his electability, my partner and I continue to be second-class citizens. One might think that this man would recognize injustice. His own parents, an interracial couple, conceived him at a time when marriage between two people of different races was illegal in many states. Perhaps his "evolution" would accelerate if he listened to Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "[W]e ask for all that you have asked for yourselves in the progress of your development ... simply on the ground that the rights of every human being are the same and identical."
Republican presidential candidates are more forthright with their opinions, but those opinions are based on ignorance or prejudice. Rick Santorum states that gay relationships do not "benefit society." He believes that children must have a married mother and father and that "traditional" families provide the healthy and nurturing bedrock of American society. If I followed his absurd logic, I would abandon my partner of 16 years and marry a woman. If my wife and I had a child, that child would end up in an environment with no emotional bond between the parents, a situation that would surely lead to misery and anger as the years of that loveless marriage progressed. This is preferable to a loving environment that my partner and I could offer a child?
Newt Gingrich signed a pledge of support for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. This is the same Newt Gingrich who wanted to redefine his own second marriage by asking his wife to allow him to keep a mistress. The hypocrisy is astounding.
The 2008 Republican platform called for the preservation of traditional marriage because, they stated, "our children's future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage." The GOP would have us believe that marriage is an unchanging tradition that has existed for millenia. But this is not true. The Bible, which many Republican candidates use to justify their opinions, is filled with men with multiple wives and concubines. Abraham, David, Jacob, and Solomon all prove this "tradition" to be false. So, please, do not use tradition and custom as weapons against my wish to marry my partner. "The tyrant, Custom," said Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "has been summoned before the bar of Common Sense. His Majesty no longer awes the multitude -- his sceptre is broken -- his crown is trampled in the dust -- the sentence of death is pronounced upon him."
I applaud the overturning of Prop 8 in California this week. We are inching closer to justice, at least in part of the country. However, the topsy-turvy history of Prop 8 is filled with the "grossest absurdities and contradictions." Must we be tortured for years to come as this same ridiculous situation slowly plays out 49 times in 49 more states?
Justice in our country is based on equality for all. Our nation separates church and state, so religious objections to civil marriage have no pertinence. I am tired of waiting while politicians posture and pontificate. I am inspired by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, not our current leaders. She reminds us that "The thinking minds of all nations call for change. There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless grinding collision of the New with the Old ... [We] demand at your hands the redress of grievances -- a revision of your state constitution -- a new code of laws."
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"marriage", from the state's point of view, is a civil arrangement with certain obligations and priveledges. "marriage" from the Church's point of view is something else.
Couples of all kinds are entitled to the benefits of a legal partnership, based on equal protection. Whether you want to call that marriage or not is the only open question. Both the state and the church lay claim to their won definition of marriage. But the concept of marriage is so intertwined in the law that calling it something else would be messy.
But, guys, about this "voting" thing? You really, seriously believe or think that voting has anything at all to do with who attains federal office in this country? Really????
Did you all miss the photo of LBJ in the pickup truck with the box of ballots?
Have you all just forgotten about the Electoral College, whose appointed, well, people, can "vote" any way they please, regardless of the tally of votes in the state?
Have you forgotten that the United States is the ONLY so-called democratic republic which even HAS a system involving an "electoral college"?
Vote?
puh---leeeeeez....
Doesn't everyone have a pet solution? I do, but it's probably just as flawed as anyone else's.
Here're my bullet points:
*Like San Francisco did regarding LGBTQ benefits, saying that a company couldn't do business in the city unless they equalized their benefits, the United States has a minimum wage law. Any business doing business in the US should have to pay the equivalent of the minimum wage to any employee anywhere in the world.
*The USA should become like all other Democratic governments. Parlaimentary. Get rid of the two-party system and have governments made up of party representatives directly related to vote. That way, everyone gets represented--every group or faction has a voice, even if not the majority. A heck of a lot more trouble to "fix" the votes then, eh? Wouldn't it be great if we had Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Socialists, Libertarians etc. etc. represented in a parlaimentary government--all those voices heard, instead of the us/them dynamic we have now?
*I'm old and ill and I did all this when I was in my teens. I protested and marched and got shot at and gassed and I don't have the energy to help solve our problems again. And why would I? All that work lasted only 15 years or so, then we were all right back where we started, worshiping at the corporate/government altar.
The electoral college is a flawed and outdated system that probably should be eliminated, though I would encourage you to read about why it exists and the benefits it was meant to ensure before blindly assuming its only purpose is to scam you out of your vote. I do not mean to show support for it, but spreading information that implies that the electoral college invalidates individual votes when history has shown it to work in all but two elections in more than a hundred years is irresponsible and serves only to encourage people to participate LESS in a system where they need to participate MORE.
Apathy solves nothing. Neither does whining about things you don't plan on trying to change.
"but spreading informatioÂn that implies that the electoral college invalidateÂs individual votes when history has shown it to work in all but two elections in more than a hundred years"
Really? it';s worked perfectly...except for those two pesky elections when it didn't.
I do know that the electoral college people aren't voted in, they're appointed. i also know that, by law, they do not HAVE to vote according to the popular or counted vote.
I also know that I've seen a picture of LBJ in the back of a pickup truck with a ballot box.
I'm sorry, but I do not have the naivety to think that just because I punched a hole in a card that that card was counted by anyone, or even if it was, that that count was passed on en toto. Didn't Florida teach you anything? I know why the Electoral College was instituted. Your arrogance in stating that simply because you disagree with me, then I must be misinformed is insulting. And discussing something is only whining when you don't agree with it. Don't post to me again. You're viewpoints are inane and assumptive.
Really? prove it.
You witnessed all of the votes being tallied everywhere throughout the entire voting cycle and can absolutely swear that every vote was accounted for?
Hmmm...you remember Florida? New Mexico? Arizona?
What happened there? All those votes lost and re-found and destroyed.
Lesseee...the government wouldn't have any stake in informing you that less than 1% of the electoral votes placed have been in opposition....blah blah blah.
You don't mean to show support for it, but you condemn any open challenge of it.
Leave me alone.
And race or gender, the legal principle is the same: the arbitrary exclusion of some couples due to a personal characteristic.
Two people who wish to enter into a union that gives them the rights and freedoms to have health insurance, make end-of-life decisions, be recognized as being joined together, change or merge each others names. . .should be allowed to. Period. Keep religion out of it and stop trying to insist that God has an interest in it.
As far as Obama is concerned, if he speaks out for marriage equality before the election, and it costs him the presidency; gay rights, women's rights, privacy rights, education, and a host of other concerns would be set back decades.
I think it is past time for marriage equality. I think women should not have to fight the reproductive battle over and over again. I think religion needs to butt out of politics and policy-making. But if we don't stick with Obama and vote more Democrats into Congress and into state an local office, we are all going to be in a world of hurt.
True, they're "based on ignorance or prejudice," but their narratives - canards about "the preservation of traditional marriage," "benefit [to] society" or "our children's future" - are only smokescreens for that prejudice.
The reality in all the places where marriage equality is recognized gives the lie to their dire warnings, exposing them for what they are: proxy "arguments" standing in for whatever personal distaste they happen to harbor for those whose passions differ from theirs.
It's simply such disapproval that's at the heart of their objections, as they're never able to credibly articulate in just what manner all this supposed damage to society or "traditional marriage" will manifest itself, or how legal recognition of our relationships will impact them in any material way.
It all comes down to nothing more than how they feel about us. That's something over which only they have any control, and is certainly nothing for which others should be made to suffer.
Besides, it's still too cool here in the PNW for all that fanning, and I'll happily accept the the warmth of your kind words - and your sense of humor - in its stead.
Many thanks, David.
Pardon the double "the" (that's what I get for using one of those "clone" PC's).
I put an even finer point on it when I commented on the Ten Surprising Things About Heterosexuality:
"Isn't it odd that the only problems exclusive to being gay originate entirely with people who aren't?"
I've always wondered: how is your first name pronounced?
Why does it get distorted so?
Love who you choose, consensually, for as long as you may.
Maybe Hillary can be the VP next January and then will she "channel" Elizabeth Cady Stanton rather than Eleanor Roosevelt this time around?
Thank you for a great huff post Domenick!
hes not perfect, but i think hes awsummm!
i hope the young enlightend people see how wrong the repubs are and never vote for any of them