Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 16th, 2010
During the Prop 8 campaign, the supporters of the California innitiative to strip LGBT couples of their then-existing right to marry promised California voters that they would not try to nullify the marriages of those who had already married. But it didn’t take long for that to turn out to be a bold-faced lie. That particular effort failed, but they’re back at it again:
As the trial over California’s prohibition on same-sex marriage enters its final stage today, the ban’s sponsors are urging the judge to go a step further and revoke state recognition of the marriages of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before voters passed Proposition 8.
Such an order would honor “the expressed will of the people,” backers of the November 2008 ballot measure said Tuesday in their final written filing before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.
Andrew Pugno, an attorney for Prop. 8’s backers, said in an interview that the sponsors aren’t asking Walker to nullify the 18,000 marriages, but only to rule that government agencies, courts and businesses no longer have to recognize the couples as married.
This is just more proof that no matter what our opponents say, they will never be satisfied with any of their gains until LGBT people are legislated back to the closet and into the prison system. Can anyone believe that if they were able to roll back enough LGBT protections that they’ll decide that they’ve reached a point where they’ve done enough? If so, where do you think that point will be? If you want to talk about slippery slopes, there’s your slippery slope, and many of them are willing to take it one small step at a time.
Update: When I posted this, I didn’t intend for this tread to become an open invitation for the tin-hat crowd to make themselves at home. I was alluding to the fact that many of our opponents would like to see the return of our criminalization. But come on, now. Concentration camps? Gas chambers? Civil war? Really? I know there are a few nutjobs that would welcome these developments, and this web site exists precisely becaue they do. But I think we can give at least, say, 85% of our fellow Americans more credit than that.
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GreenEyedLilo
June 16th, 2010
My wife and I were forcibly divorced by judges in Massachusetts. That is a set of emotions that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. (We re-married as soon as we were able.) I really, really hope this doesn’t come to pass. I really, really hope that straight people on the fence see just how cruel anti-gay activists can be.
Jim in MA
June 16th, 2010
But are you surprised? Gay rights opponents don’t just want to keep us from getting equal rights, they want to take away all our rights, until they can start forcing us into work camps, and then shove us into gas chambers. Again, just a slippery slope. No harm in that, is there? Just one small cut, at a time. Isn’t that just how concentration camps were born early last century?
Yeah, the Holocaust was horrible, until you want it to happen to people you irrationally hate.
GreenEyedLilo
June 16th, 2010
@ Jim in MA: I would have been less surprised if I’d awoken to a lime-green sky raining down jellybeans this morning.
michael
June 16th, 2010
I’ve got one thing to say about this…this is going to push us back to the dark ages and to hitlers germany. V is for Vendetta watch that movie, it will open your eyes to where we are heading in this country.
Lindoro Almaviva
June 16th, 2010
That is a very easy question to Answer (even if it is rhetoric):
How about Here and Here</a
NARNC60AC
June 16th, 2010
unfortunately “V” might be exactly where this country is headed i’m afraid-outright civil war; & the civil war of 1860-1865 is gonna look tame compared to the next one
one 1 side is gonna be those of us that believe in our Constitutional Rights, the other side is gonna be the afa, fotf, frc etc
here’s a couple quotes i keep on my wall:
“”God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty….And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”-Thomas Jefferson
i also have hanging the 1st line from the Declaration of Independence: the 1 that says “all men are created equal etc”
Bill S
June 16th, 2010
The “will of the public”? Aren’t the 36,000 people that account for 18,000 couples a part of that public?
Jim Burroway
June 16th, 2010
When I posted this, I didn’t intend for this tread to become an open invitation for the tin-hat crowd to make themselves at home. I was alluding to the fact that many of our opponents would like to see the return of our criminalization. But come on, now. Concentration camps? Gas chambers? Civil war? Really? I know there are a few nutjobs that would welcome these developments, and this web site exists precisely becaue they do. But I think we can give at least, say, 85% of our fellow Americans more credit than that.
NARNC60AC
June 16th, 2010
@jim
“tin-hat” crowd? “nutjobs”?
your derisive condemnation of a couple individuals who dare to speak of what “might happen” or “possibly can happen” [myself included] show that you can’t [or don’t] think of what is possible if those people get their “beliefs” codified into the Law of the land
let me just state here-i DO NOT welcome the idea of civil war: i’m prepared for that eventuality IF the “christian right” succeed in their campaign
you just stated it perfectly: “the return of our criminalization”-what happens after being homosexual gets criminalized?
is that the end of it-we get marginalized? or is the “criminalization of homosexuality” just the beginning-with more punishments added to that finding as time goes by?
it is possible that “crimininalization of homosexuality” leads to more than just plain “criminalization”: concentration camps, gas chambers, civil war, etc?
you called it a “slippery slope” earlier-here’s another slippery slope-& it begins with the criminalization of our orientation
how & why did germany fill up the cocentration camps in the early 1940’s?
by declaring anyone an “enemy of the state’s beliefs”: were their beliefs/behavior criminalized? explain how else did they end up in the death camps?
some of the individuals & groups on the other side would like to see homosexuality “removed from America”-how do you supposed they’d like to go about that?
NARNC60AC
June 16th, 2010
& since u feel that i’m just a “tin-hat nutjob” for voicing my opinion of what could happen in the future [basing my opinion on what has happened in the past], i’ll just take myself elsewhere
Priya Lynn
June 16th, 2010
The idea of concentration camps and gas chambers for gays in North America seems inconceivable but then I look at Uganda and I’m not so sure. Certainly these sorts of things happened at one time and there’s been no magical change to our DNA that prevents people from behaving as they once did. We like to think that once progress has been achieved it can never go backwards but that isn’t always the case. Just because I can’t conceive of circumstances that would lead to gas chambers and concentration camps here doesn’t mean I consider it impossible although I would consider it so unlikely as to not be worth worrying about.
Patrick
June 16th, 2010
How many times have we heard people use Leviticus 20:13 against us? How many times have we been reminded of the penalty for violating Leviticus 20:13?
Keep in mind, if Boswell’s accounts are accurate, in the Middle Ages homosexuality went from being tolerated to receiving the death penalty in less than a century.
If arch-conservative forces were to gain enough momentum to get homosexuality re-criminalized, I’m not convinced they would just stop there. Uganda is an example of how those who take the Bible literally will, if allowed to continue to influence government, take Leviticus 20:13 literally as well.
It certainly wouldn’t fly past the majority of Americans today – but what about the majority of Americans 100 years from now if the pendulum were to swing the other direction?
Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes.
Jack
June 17th, 2010
How about if we annul 52.1% of the 18,000 marriages and keep 47.9% of them in effect. Solomonically speaking, THAT is the will of the people.
Ben in Oakland
June 17th, 2010
Sentto the Chroniclew yesterdayL
The forces behind Prop. 8 have asked Judge walker to revoke state recognition of the legal marriages performed before that odious proposition passed. So, the sanctity of marriage crowd actually wants the state to annul my legal marriage without my consent. My marriage will still exist, it just won’t be valid in the state of California.
They have claimed repeatedly that they are not anti-gay, just pro-marriage– as long as the parts are different. If the political campaign that often and clearly called our marriage a threat to family, children, religion and freedom did not give the lie to this bogus claim, then perhaps this motion to the court will. This is a direct attack on our marriage, our lives, our civil rights, and our freedom of religion: for all practical intents and purposes, it forces us to divorce.
Although the anti-gay side claim to decry judicial activism, should Judge walker grant this motion, it will be nothing less than judicial activism of the worst sort: the undoing of a legal marriage– a legal contract– by judicial fiat, without the consent of those most affected.
Here is my question to those who are on the fence about same-sex marriage, or for that matter, about the true motivations of these “defenders of marriage”:
How would YOU feel if your legal marriage, your life partnership, could be called a threat to everything you value, and ended by someone you don’t even know?
Jason D
June 17th, 2010
Ben, great work again.
“How would YOU feel if your legal marriage, your life partnership, could be called a threat to everything you value, and ended by someone you don’t even know?”
I tried asking that of a former classmate from High School who said that gays had no right to same sex marriage.
She had a meltdown.
She refused to answer the question because, according to her:
-There is no answer to that question.
-It’s a trick question.
-It’s an attempt to not let her have her beliefs.
-It’s unfair to ask that question.
-It made her cry.
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