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 lobbyMarch 14th, 2013
Hey everybody, I’m working on a little video project, and it’s built around our opposition’s most common themes and cliches. Here’s what I’ve got so far.
What have I missed? I’m not looking for fringe stuff. I need mainstream opposition themes, the ones that they build million-dollar campaigns around, the ones that sway moderate voters. For instance, I just thought of another: “Let the people vote!”
Any others?
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tim
March 14th, 2013
Government should get out of marriage all together.
F Young
March 14th, 2013
They’ll teach our kids that two boys can marry each other when they grow up.
They’ll teach our kids that gay marriages are okay.
Teachers will be prohibited from teaching that homosexuality is a sin and that same-sex marriages are contrary to the Bible.
Brad
March 14th, 2013
Giving same-sex couples equal rights will take away First Amendment rights of Christianists.
m
March 14th, 2013
Don’t forget the slippery slope to being able to marry a box turtle!
Rhonda
March 14th, 2013
Male and female are complimentary.
Jonathan
March 14th, 2013
You forgot my favorite!
Gays can still marry people of the opposite sex.
Richard Rush
March 14th, 2013
Here’s a treasure trove of “our opposition’s most common themes and cliches.” It goes on for about 1 1/2 hours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcmKHqH56_4
Johan Lundgren
March 14th, 2013
“If you change marriage you will devalue it by making it less specific, then we won’t be able to tell at a glance what sexuality someone has by asking if they’re married, which is horrible because certainty is divine.”
“Priests who oppose gay marriage will be limited in their profession as suddenly they will not be able to marry any couple that come to them and they may even be discriminated against by their employers for this fact.”
These were quite popular among the opposition in the run up to changing the swedish law, so perhaps they’re a bit more fringe.
Truthspew
March 14th, 2013
Go hit my blog, specifically this one – the entirety of the marriage equality debate in the RI House of Representative, where it passed with 72% of the membership voting yes.
http://youtu.be/hhrAJlQiMuQ
Plenty of fertile material in there from elected representatives.
manheart
March 14th, 2013
Ours are earnestly held religious beliefs about homosexuality, so you can’t criticize us.
TampaZeke
March 14th, 2013
“Marriage was designed by God/The Church and the government has no business messing with it.”
“Marriage has been the same since the beginning of time and shouldn’t be redefined just because a few homosexuals are complaining.”
Bernie Keefe
March 14th, 2013
“The sin of Sodom was Homosexuality”
“70% of all gays have AIDS.”, Robert Jeffress
“They have all the same rights as anyone else”
Hope that helps Rob!
Darina
March 14th, 2013
“We’re fighting for the rights of children” is too general, Rob. It may refer to any of the following things:
– Children need/have the right to a Mom and a Dad.
– The gays want to recruit your children into the gay lifestyle with their gay propaganda.
– I don’t want the poor innocent children to learn anything about those perverts.
– The gays want to rape little boys (well, maybe not put so bluntly). This may be thrown in together with the issue of adoption, or just used to show that the gays are Very Bad People.
Bruce
March 14th, 2013
If we allow same sex couple to marry, why not allow polygamy?
Ian
March 15th, 2013
– Something about not giving in to the ‘Gay Agenda’.
– Gays want more benefits/privileges that they don’t need.
– HIV/AIDS among the gay communities
– Gays don’t love other people, they only lust. (or something along the lines of ‘gay couples are just friends with benefits’)
– Sham marriages. (from the mere ‘straight guys marry for green card’ to the point above)
– Children will suffer if they are parented(wow, parented is a word) by same-sex couples.
And definitely the ‘gays can marry girls’ thing.
Ben In Oakland
March 15th, 2013
I think the whole idea that marraige needs defending from people geting married is a huge thing. It is to me the mosto ffensive idea. Gay people would so harm marriage by getting married becuase straight people won’t want to because it demans their marriages because gay people are just so disgustingly awful icky sinners because god and jesus and sodom.
Genderless marriage is also pretty nifty.
That marriage is so weak and nebulous that if 4% have the same right to get married as the 96%, it changes everything in some undefined way for the 96%.
I think the government out of marriage meme is also important, or at least wasn’t until gay people wanted to get married.
esurience
March 15th, 2013
“Children have a right to a mother and father.”
Andrew
March 15th, 2013
– a state that permits gay marriage discriminates against those who don’t agree with it
– all religions will be forced to offer gay marriages or face criminal prosecution under hate laws
– there *is* such a thing as “traditional” marriage (look at a timeline of marriage rules and laws over the past 200 years alone)
– gay marriage harms the institution (wrong: giving women equal rights and making divorce legal took care of that quite nicely).
– there’s no difference between gay marriage and civil unions, so why are you being such a bitch about it, just take the olive branch you’re being offered?
– the gay community will never be satisfied, today it’s gay marriage, tomorrow it’s something else
– in the words of my uncle “i respect you, i love you, but it’s just not a marriage”. (my response: “respect my same-sex civil marriage as a fellow citizen, and i’ll respect your second marriage.”) – rhetorically cute, but not really sure how we combat that gut-level irrational response with words or essays… think that one just requires contact and visibility.
JohnAGJ
March 15th, 2013
How about the fallback position tried in Minnesota that Timothy criticized the other day? That allowing SSM would have a negative impact on the state budget for such a small percentage of the population?
Bill Ware
March 15th, 2013
People choose to be gay.
“Hundreds and hundreds”, oops I mean “Thousands and thousands”, er, no, I mean “Hundreds of thousands” have left the gay lifestyle. (choose one)
gsingjane
March 15th, 2013
Marriage is the most sacred institution in society, the core pillar of all human life and endeavor, and it has been exactly the same for 2000 years. Re-defining it now is tampering with a foundational value and will lead to unforeseen but highly damaging and dangerous societal impacts.
SSM will have serious and very long-term impacts on successive generations. We are experimenting with their lives and well-being, not our own. As society modifies its core values, the impacts will be extreme but cannot currently be fully predicted or measured. This is why the current experiences in venues where SSM is legal are irrelevant to the argument.
The idea of SSM is very confusing to children, who inherently understand the truth that marriage is for one man and one woman.
Our civilization is founded upon Judeo-Christian values, and one of those values is one man/one woman marriage. Tampering with one core value would put other core values “in play.”
God will punish a society that rejects His rules; in fact we’re seeing it now with hurricanes/earthquakes/global warming and other extreme weather.
Willie Hewes
March 15th, 2013
Something about the foundation of society thing, definately.
And something about Christians being prosecuted for their beliefs if the gays “win”, though that’s not just a marriage argument.
Wait, you’re not just asking about marriage arguments, are you? Then also: teaching kids gay people exist, or even allowing them to see/witness gayness of any kind will either turn them gay, or make them tolerant of gaiety, and that would be TERRIBLE.
Timothy (TRiG)
March 15th, 2013
Here’s two from my blog:
“You can’t call my beliefs nasty: I’m being nice!” (See especially the link to Slacktivist.)
“Hey, why do you need the word marriage anyway?”
TRiG.
Richard Rush
March 15th, 2013
Some cliches have become too embarrassing for most of our opposition. This one was once heard frequently:
“God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Martin
March 15th, 2013
“If my child sees a same-sex married couple, I’ll be forced to explain homosexual intercourse to my child.”
Neil
March 15th, 2013
Gays are an insignificant minority. The government has more important things to be worrying about than gay rights.
The union of a man and a woman follows Natural Law. If gay marriage was accepted, we wouldn’t be here. If we accept it now, there’s a danger we might become extinct.
Rob Tisinai
March 15th, 2013
THESE ARE GREAT! A treasure trove. Thanks!
Steve Kindle
March 15th, 2013
No one has mentioned “Pray away the gay!” Or, “Being gay is a choice.”
Mary
March 15th, 2013
Two I hear from non-religious folks:
1) Being gay is biologically unnatural.
and the sort of related
2) gay people are less healthy/more diseased than straight people.
Jim Hlavac
March 15th, 2013
Gays are sick and demented, psychologically stunted, but aren’t covered by the American with Disabilities Act either.
Gayness is caused by an unnatural predisposition that is largely unexplained and a weak or absent father and a strong mother or a weak mom and overbearing dad and a homosexual lurking down the block and we choose to be gay too, and there’s no gay gene because no one looked and we’re not going to.
Say, how do we turn off our natural heterosexuality?
So, I need a woman, eh? I want to date your sister.
customartist
March 15th, 2013
“SS Marriage is the WORST problem facing society”(paraphrased) – Pope Benedict
Andrew
March 15th, 2013
Mary, #1 is awesome, but statistically, #2 could be a greyer area. For example, HIV rates are higher in men who have sex with men, and because fewer lesbians have children and breast-feeding reduces the incidence of breast cancer, lesbians have a higher incidence of breast cancer – those are something that would make a counter-argument likely. Perhaps the bigger question would be “so that justifies you to legislate me out of existence? how about you go after all the alcohol users and cigarette smokers and overweight people – then come see me”
Jim – I love that one :)
And yeah – I hate the argument that intolerance of intolerance is somehow being a hater. “You aren’t allowed to dislike me for hating you” is a ridiculous argument. Talk about victimizing someone twice.
TampaZeke
March 15th, 2013
“Gays want “special rights”.”
“Marriage encourages fidelity among straight couples”, and in the SAME BREATH, “gays shouldn’t have access to marriage because there’s too much infidelity among gays.”
Oh and, keep in mind that, at least where I came from, “Think of the children who will suffer discrimination” was one of the MOST popular “arguments” against mixed race marriages.
TampaZeke
March 15th, 2013
If you point one index finger of the right hand leftward and the index finger of the left hand rightward and bang them into each other they don’t “fit”.
Same goes for a circle made with the index finger and thumb of one hand not “naturally fitting” into the circle made by the other hand.
As ridiculous as those two examples seem I’ve seen BOTH of them used MULTIPLE TIMES on Fox News, MSNBC and other nation-wide “news” channels.
Regan DuCasse
March 15th, 2013
I’ve pretty much found any number of retorts to all of these ridiculous defenses of discrimination.
Our dissenters don’t seem to get that singularly, NONE of their defenses are legal to discriminate for.
So they won’t work COLLECTIVELY either.
We’re all very good at responding, they just don’t want to hear them.
We have had more practice than they have, to say nothing of experience.
Here’s my contribution
“Being gay is a behavior, and mutable behavior doesn’t need any Constitutional protections.”
This of course contradicts protecting mutable religious behavior with the Constitution.
“Children deserve a mother and a father.”
This contradicts the fact that MARRIAGE doesn’t require a mother and a father.
“Marriage isn’t a civil right, it’s a privilege, like having a driver’s license and driving a car is a privilege.”
Which contradicts the fact that driving requires skills, and physical prowess to safely use a car.
One doesn’t require any competence or skills tests for marriage or parenting to safely raise kids.
Good luck Rob!
Robert
March 15th, 2013
THis list of comments alreaqdy has the ones I would have mentioned. Good list here. Best of luck Rob in doing what you are doing.
Matt Kennedy
March 15th, 2013
“We believe in natural marriage.” Arguments flowing from natural law a la “What is Marriage” by Robert George.
Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society because it raises and trains up the next generation of citizens and the best environment to raise children is in intact biological families.
Those are the only other big arguments I could think of now that haven’t been mentioned yet.
JohnAGJ
March 15th, 2013
“Being gay is a behavior, and mutable behavior doesn’t need any Constitutional protections.â€
This of course contradicts protecting mutable religious behavior with the Constitution.
Don’t forget their fallback position when you point this out to them: well freedom of religion is explicitly protected in the Constitution while homosexuality is not!
The stoopid burns…
Regan DuCasse
March 15th, 2013
Thank you JohnAGJ.
Monumentally stupid. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to remind these idiots that it’s not homosexuality that’s being protected, but the PUBLIC law abiding, tax paying, responsible and productive citizens who are gay, that the Constitution must protect.
The Constitution protects PRIVACY, and protects those private acts that are not crimes against another person or property.
The Constitution protects the minority from the tyranny of a majority.
They project that the motive of all things gay people do is sex, sex, sex.
The motive is made openly, honestly and truthfully clear without deception or covert conspiracy.
Equal treatment under the law for being a HUMAN BEING, and law abiding citizen.
Says right THERE in the Bill of Rights.
StraightGrandmother
March 15th, 2013
You will be called a bigot if the gays win.
Maggie Gallagher’s Classic- It is not wrong to treat different things differently
They can do what they want but they don’t get to redefine Marriage for the rest of us
All kinds of religious based excuses
Gays are harmful to children (see Regnerus)
It is not unfair because every man, even a gay man, IS allowed to Marry exactly one woman at a time.
It will be taught in our schools.
StraightGrandmother
March 15th, 2013
I forgot this one, gays don’t really want to marry anyway they are just using this as an excuse to gain social acceptance for their perversions.
Gays are all wealthy.
Gays only want children as an accessory, like a little teacup dog you keep in your purse. That NOM guy from Rhode Island said that on video tape. Good as you has it. I STILL remember that one. Chris Plant (or maybe Chris LaPlant) that is the name.
StraightGrandmother
March 15th, 2013
Most pedophiles are gay men.
TampaZeke
March 15th, 2013
“It’s not discriminatory against gays to limit marriage to opposite sex couples because NO ONE (straight or gay) is allowed to marry someone of the same sex.”
JohnAGJ
March 15th, 2013
The Constitution protects PRIVACY, and protects those private acts that are not crimes against another person or property.
Come, come, Regan, everybody knows that this an invention of the Warren Court in Roe v. Wade. The Constitution says nothing about a right to privacy! /s
JohnAGJ
March 15th, 2013
Gays are all wealthy.
Now that’s one stereotype I wouldn’t mind if it were true. *sigh*…
JohnAGJ
March 15th, 2013
How about the one about “activist judges” imposing their will on the people – except when a few rule in NOM’s favor?
Or that democracy and the will of the people are undermined when the legislatures they elect enact SSM or civil unions? Well, except of course when such efforts are defeated by NOM’s allies, then the people have spoken, baby!
Then there’s my favorite about how the people should have the right to decide this matter – except of course when it comes to something they find to be a violation of civil rights, or in some cases when the people vote in favor of SSM.
I gots a million of ’em folks and will be here all week! At-cha-cha-cha!
MCB
March 16th, 2013
JohnAGJ, I think a better summary would be:
“Gay marriage is the work of activist judges and legislatures; whenever the people are allowed to vote on amendments and laws, they’ve always come out against gay marriage.
“And the recent victories in Maryland, Maine, and Washington? Well, that’s just because they were massively outspent by gay activists, who still only managed to get *slim* majorities, so that doesn’t reflect the *true* will of the people.”
I’d add my own: you have to make some reference to African Americans not buying that gay rights is comparable to the civil rights movement – making sure to use statistics that are woefully out of date as African American opinion has been shifting to nearly the same levels as white Americans.
Donny D.
March 16th, 2013
The gays want same sex marriage legalized because that’s part of their push for societal acceptance.
Gays seek legal same sex marriage out of a need for societal approval, not because they want to get married.
Gay relationships are unstable and never last, so they don’t deserve marriage rights.
Gays are so promiscuous that even when they are in relationships, they still have sex with other people, so they don’t deserve marriage rights.
Marriage is all about raising children, so intentionally childless same sex couples must not be allowed to marry.
Same sex marriage would primarily be about the relationship itself, so any children would be raised with insufficient regard or effort. Translation: those self-centered gay couples would be all about entertaining themselves, so they would neglect their children.
Banning same sex marriage would prevent the harms that happen to children of gay couples, because they would not have children unless they could get married.
Often implicit: Lesbians don’t exist.
Always implicit: Bisexuals are never part of a same sex couple, it’s always about “the gays”.
Gay men, who are smeared as irresponsible, unstable, sex-crazed, and pedophilic, become proxies for all lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. It’s easier to smear a smaller, less diverse subgroup and have it represent the entire group that’s being attacked.
Christopher
March 17th, 2013
“There is no right to same-sex marriage in the constitution”
“Gay people already have the right to marry like everyone else” (my personal favorite).
Ned Flaherty
March 17th, 2013
Rob, here’s 90% of everything you need, conveniently collected in just 3 sources:
Kalley Yanta, hostess of the “Minnesota For Marriage Minute” video series that ran during 2012
Dr. Sharon James, hostess of Britain’s C4M (Coalition For Marriage) “Marriage Minutes” video series, still running
Roman Catholic clergy…..
Pope Benedict:
“intrinsic moral evilâ€
“intrinsically disorderedâ€
“contrary to natural lawâ€
“inherently evilâ€
“threatens human dignityâ€
“threatens the traditional familyâ€
“undermines the future of humanity itselfâ€
San Francisco Roman Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (Proposition 8 author):
“the ultimate attack of the Evil Oneâ€
Chicago Cardinal Francis George:
“is against the common good of societyâ€
“is contrary to the common sense of the human raceâ€
“undermines the familyâ€
“endangers societyâ€
Glasgow, Scotland Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti:
“morally defectiveâ€
Ned Flaherty
Timothy (TRiG)
March 17th, 2013
I posted in a Christian chat room, and got the following responses:
From Peter Turner:
“gay marriage opens up the doors to any sort of marriage”
“gay marriage enshrines immorality which will be taught to our children in public school and (gasp) on TV”
“gay marriage is neither gay nor marriage” (not sure what that last one means).
From fredsbend (who later clarified that these weren’t things he’d say himself):
“He made them Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”
“Marriage is a sacred institution”
“They can have civil union but not marriage”
“Allowing gay marriage would be condoning the behavior”
Also some guff from the new Pope.
TRiG.
Hue-Man
March 18th, 2013
Here’s an outright lie from Rick Santorum posted this morning: “Marriage is something of nature. It’s something that every civilization in the history of man has recognized as a very valuable bedrock of society. Just because people change their mind doesn’t make anything less so.”
http://www.towleroad.com/2013/03/santorumportman.html
fWS
March 19th, 2013
-it is unnatural, against obvious biological facts.
-it is contrary to the bible
-it would teach children that homosexuality is “normal”so maybe more of them would be tempted to decide to be homosexuals or at least experiment with it(no kidding. they believe this!)
-it goes against ancient tradition.
-it would devalue the meaning of the word.
-it would change the dictionary meaning
-gays dont need marriage if they can have civil unions or domestic partnerships
-it gives gays legal permission to have sex.
-it condones something imoral and sinful
-it legitimizes something imoral and sinful
-it lets persons be unashamed when they should be ashamed
-it creates special rights for gays.
-gays CAN get married to the opposite sex, so no one is forbidding gays to get married (not kidding here either!)
Richard Rush
March 19th, 2013
“-it would devalue the meaning of the word [marriage].”
It’s a lot like . . . If I were an Episcopalian who owned a Mercedes Benz, and then my Christian Fundamentalist neighbor bought one, too, it would devalue the status and prestige to which I felt entitled.
StraightGrandmother
March 19th, 2013
fws, Oh I forgot about “special rights” that is a good catch.
Isn’t it interesting how we can recall freely without much effort at all, all the arguments from the other side? This shows me how damaging this is, the fact that we can all remember them.
Wedding photographers, Bakery owners, Catholic Charities, that Pavillion from the East Cost, was it New Jersey?
We are a Christian Nation.
Don’t forget Cyndy Jacobs how gays are responsible for Blackbirds falling from the sky, tornado, earthquakes, basically any natural disaster, Yup it’s the fault of the gays. God is made at us becasue of the gays.
I think I would find a way to sneak in a reference to a Chicken Sandwich.
Holy Bullies has the good doc
http://t.co/hHqutts2PU
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