The fundamentalists just won’t give it up.
In a landmark 2003 decision, the US
Supreme Court declared gay sex was not a crime. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in
the Court’s opinion that “moral disapproval is not a valid justification for
discriminatory laws that demean gay couples."
Justice Antonin
Scalia, in his dissent, predicted that eliminating moral disapproval as a
rightful basis for a law would allow same-sex marriage. He only had to wait a
few months when in May 2004; Massachusetts became the first state to declare gay
couples had a right to marry. That set in motion state-by-state challenges to
laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman. Many members of state legislatures still believed gay sex was a crime, therefore, gays shouldn't be allowed to marry and legitimize it, but they couldn't come right out and say that.
This created a legal black hole as lawyers defending
anti-gay marriage laws scrambled to find a rational basis to continue discrimination
that did not rely on “tradition”, or on the religious view that homosexuality
was a sin. Initial efforts led them to suggest it was a procreation issue:
Opposite-sex couples should marry because they could have children, even accidentally,
and the state wanted them to wed. Ergo, it could legally limit
marriage to heterosexual couples only...for the sake of the children, of
course.
By 2015, Michigan had twisted Justice Kennedy's 2003 opinion about discriminatory laws by saying that they don't want to let gay people marry because getting married would demean gay people. Demeaning heterosexual couples via marriage, though, was not a problem.
In Kentucky, they felt that
their marriage ban wasn't discriminatory, since LGBTs are free to get married,
as long as it’s straight-married. No, not a whiff of discrimination in that.
What if we reversed it? Straights could wed anyone so long as it was only someone
of the same sex.
Ohio wants to maintain its marriage ban out of concern for
the people who voted for it...sort of like “Sorry folks, our ignorant voters were told by
their preachers that this has to stay on the books or God’ll do really awful things
to them, and they’re just filled with fear.”
Tennessee is fixated on sex….i.e. penises and vaginas. They are
meant for each other and no other orifices are to be considered, except as
gateways to hell. See, they use the bible to claim anything else is unnatural…as
if a talking serpent is.
A naturally occurring talking serpent charms Adam and Eve who seem equipped with something un-natural given their supposed 'origin'.
In the current case before the Supreme Court, the state of
Michigan has denied a marriage license to two women who are raising four foster
kids abandoned by their natural mothers. The women, who are both nurses, were allowed
to adopt the children, but only as individuals, not as a couple. When asked why
these women should be barred from marrying, Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch
insisted the decision had nothing to do with disapproval of their lifestyle;
that being gay was not the problem."Oh, gosh, no,” he said, “the state doesn't care about
sexual orientation. We're not drawing distinctions based on the identity, the
orientation or the choices of anyone. It's not meant to exclude."
Clarifying the state’s position, Bursch said “The state's concern is that
allowing the women to marry would have an effect on the rest of society. It
would "de-link the idea that we're binding children with their biological
mom and dad."
See the difference?
If not, let me re-interpret Mr. Bursch’s bloviating: “Oh
gosh no, allowing the women to marry would have a detrimental effect on society because it would hamper our narrow-minded
religious bigotry and discrimination because our holy book, written about 2
thousand years ago, before anyone had an understanding of human desire and human
biology, made a claim that homosexuality was bad, (but never says why it’s
bad) and therefore a sin, punishable by death. Moral disapproval is
valid justification to maintain prejudiced and intolerant laws aimed solely at
gay couples because the state of Michigan doesn’t want the children “de-linked”
from the biological father and mother (the only ones who should be granted
marriage rights), and have them “linked-up” with non-biological parents who are of
the same sex.” Does Mr. Bursch actually think the four kids should be bound to the mothers and fathers that abandoned them, and not instead be linked with the two women who have loved them and raised them since? How would the women getting married "de-link" the kids from their biological parents? How does that work?
When two
people of consenting age love each other, even if they are the same sex, why
should it matter to anyone other than the two people involved if they get married?
I personally
think the state's position should be bending over and touching their toes...while
every LGBT boot in the state is screaming up from behind to land a well-aimed kick.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision before
its term ends in June. So, if you’re in a committed gay relationship now, plan on a
June wedding.
