September 10th, 2014
The opponents of equality have vociferously insisted that they hold no animus to gay people in their efforts to deny marriage to same-sex couples. No, it’s for the children, to encourage heterosexual marriage, to send a message of paternal bonding, to encourage parentage of accidental babies, and to channel procreation into socially advantageous structures but never, ever, ever is it animus towards gay people.
No sirree.
Except, of course, that absolutely everyone knows that the primary motivation for the opposition to same-sex marriage is an objection to same-sex couples being perceived or recognized as socially, legally, or morally equivalent to opposite-sex couples. It is, and always has been, based in a desire to hold heterosexuals out as superior to homosexuals and to firmly continue that message and social position.
And perhaps nothing makes so honest an admission of that motivation than an amicus brief filed in support of the state of Utah in it’s appeal to the decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that their anti-gay marriage laws violate the US Constitution.
But first the back-story.
David Fancher and Paul Hard met in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2004. Six years later, in May 2011, they married on a beach in Massachusetts. Less than three months later Fancher was dead, the consequence of a traffic accident caused by an overturned truck.
Fancher and Hard had tried to protect their family with such wills and other legal documents as they could. Nevertheless, Hard was subjected to indignity at the hospital and later at the funeral home. But no indignity mattered so much as Alabama state law which disallows anyone who isn’t “next of kin” to receive compensation from a wrongful death. And the state of Alabama specifically disallowed David Fancher’s husband from being next of kin.
Earlier this year, Hard sued the state and asserted that the ban on recognizing same-sex marriages legally conducted in another state were in violation of several provisions of the US Constitution and that he is legally entitled to half of the settlement. However, his mother-in-law, Pat Fancher, contacted Judge Roy Moore’s Foundation for Moral Law to defend her claim on the money.
But, it’s not just all about the money. And though Alabama is in the Eleventh Circuit, the Foundation for Moral Law has filed a brief arguing just why it is that Utah’s anti-gay laws (and thus Alabama’s) should be vindicated by the Supreme Court.
The Foundation has an interest in this case because it believes that this nation’s laws should reflect the moral basis upon which the nation was founded, and that the ancient roots of the common law, the pronouncements of the legal philosophers from whom this nation’s Founders derived their view of law, the views of the Founders themselves, and the views of the American people as a whole from the beginning of American history at least until very recently, have held that homosexual conduct is immoral and should not be sanctioned by giving it the official state sanction of marriage.
Well, thanks for clarifying that for us.
Yes, we’ve always knows that your objections to equality have no real rational reason or purpose. We’ve always understood that it is your religious beliefs that have justified truly vile behavior to others. We’ve been clear from the start that this has nothing to do with the smoke screens thrown up by state and advocacy group attorneys and everything to do with punishing gay people for their own existence.
But it’s nice to see it there so starkly in print.
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Ben in Oakland
September 10th, 2014
Timothy, we don’t even need that. The very fact that they claim heterosexual marriage and heterosexuality need defending from ME should be sufficient evidence of animus.
Timothy Kincaid
September 10th, 2014
Ben,
You’d certainly think that would be enough. But somehow heterosexuals don’t seem to understand that connection.
So it’s nice to see Foundation for Moral Law people laying it out so clearly.
Bose in St. Peter MN
September 10th, 2014
The only thing I’d add is that their objections aren’t just about LGBT folks being perceived as equal… it’s that we ask, work and fight for the freedom to live ordinary, boring lives.
We don’t care how much a few of our neighbors disapprove of us. It simply doesn’t matter how much some church-goers find us deficient, defective or otherwise undeserving.
Leave us alone to live free of violence because of who we are and who we love, free to earn and keep the jobs we’re qualified for, free to create and protect the families we adore. Spit on us metaphorically every day to prove the value of free speech, but don’t block our access to the same courthouse, or prevent us from accessing the same birth, death and marriage certificates.
Neil
September 10th, 2014
It is a very glaring cognitive dissonance. The moment same-sex marriage looks like a reality early in the Century, a whole slew of amendments and laws are served to close off the possibility. The central debate is all about gay rights and gender discrimination. Same-sex partners are the only visible losers from the marriage bans.
But no, it’s nothing to do with gays. It’s just a coincidence that gays are among the not right people. Gays just happened to be in the frontline of assault, but the drawbridge is up now. If it were lowered then all the really weird not right people will sneak inside behind the gays. They don’t call it the bastion of marriage for nothing.
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