Why the Maine people's veto attempt on gay marriage will fail

[NickCole]

How was I supposed to know that This is a thread about gay marriage in Maine.

You posted about Catania introducing the marriage bill in DC today and said you might go into the city to "report" from there, and that sounded like you are very familiar with DC politics and therefore would readily recall the flap caused by Congressional Democrats recently doing the bidding of the NRA in DC.

But as I've already said, sorry I was unclear.

 

[NickCole]

Nope. Don't care about what the NRA does

Weird because you started a thread titled "Obama Effect" the best thing to ever happen to the gun industry and then vigorously participated in it, including asserting, "I firmly believe guns protect people from crime." Odd that someone who firmly believes in something a powerful group like the NRA fights for wouldn't care about what the NRA does.

 

[NickCole]

Still don't care what the NRA does

But the article I put on the gun industry sure had an interesting spin on it didn't it? That is why I published it.

You need to stop linking unrelated concepts in your mind, NickCole.

You may not care what the NRA does but "I firmly believe guns protect people from crime" and the NRA are not unrelated concepts.

 

[scream4ever]

It's quite possible! We will know in four weeks.

BTW, Catania is introducing the marriage bill in DC today. I will try to get into DC to report what goes on from there. It will depend on my boss letting me go, a likelihood since the boating season is practically over.



It will depend on how effective the No on 1 will be at countering their lies. If they frame the debate as gays preying on children, they will win. The No on 1 campaign was smart, they have also gone on the offensive using schools as a setting. They are using teachers as spokespersons countering the Yon1 lies and drilling the fact that they are lying pretty hard.

Another point benefiting us:

Many on this thread have talked about voter turnout, and how motivating our side to the polls will be a problem. Maine has the 3rd highest voter turnout of any state (behind Minnesota and Wisconsin, and followed by New Hampshire and Iowa).

 

[scream4ever]

It's also an odd voting year, which draws a conservative leaning crowd to the polls unfortunately. It will hit our chances hard.

I know, but the bottom line is that the state does have a high voter turnout, and with voters being able to do absentee ballots 1 month before the elction that will make it easy for young people to vote.

Remember that the Nate Silver statistic of 32% already took into account the fact that it was an off year.

 

[Kensei]

There is a new misleading ad by Yes on 1:



They're talking about California's school curriculum and making it sound as if Maine is the same.

Get this: It's from Yes on 1 Maine on youtube and they of course disabled the ads. However, they DID NOT disable video responses. I encourage everyone to make a video response like I'm going to do tomorrow morning to tell the viewers that marriage isn't taught in schools in Maine so it won't be shoved down students thoughts like the ad claims.

 

[Kulindahr]

Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not bear false witness"?

 

[scream4ever]

That poll is actually old Jockboy. The latest one (and with a much larger sample size as well) shows us ahead 50% to 41%. Still, we should be working hard. I have no credit card but I got my mom to donate and I raised $70 at a local gay bar and spread the word on the issue. My city is holding a rally on Sunday and I plan to do the same.

 

[CaptainRush]

That poll is actually old Jockboy. The latest one (and with a much larger sample size as well) shows us ahead 50% to 41%. Still, we should be working hard. I have no credit card but I got my mom to donate and I raised $70 at a local gay bar and spread the word on the issue. My city is holding a rally on Sunday and I plan to do the same.

This is the poll I most recently saw too. I paid off some of my credit card so I'm throwing another $20 down to support the effort!

 

[CaptainRush]

I bet after this weekend donations will sky rocket.

 

[CaptainRush]

At least I know I'm not confabulating, thanks

That's awesome that you did that CaptainRush. You are a responsible and generous citizen.

We really need to stick together on this one. A victory will be huge and a defeat extremely demoralizing. I received an email from Brian Brown the executive director of NOM, gloating about how demoralized donors for the No on 8 campaign still are after our huge loss in California. That is what enraged me and motivated me to chip in another 25 and write the post begging for all of you to help Maine out with this fight, because it is really a fight for every homosexual's rights and nobody should feel demoralized enough to give up. We should just try harder!

I got this email too. Where the hell does he get off? The no on 1 campaign has been skyrocketing through with donations while the Yes on 1 has apparently come up with nearly half that.

Brian Brown has an excellent knack for twisting words in favour of his audience. He'll say anything to win. Notice his urgency for for Maine? He said it is priority and everyone knows it because it'll be the first time voters approve of same-sex marriage.

Can't wait for November! ^^

 

[CaptainRush]

O you get Brian's emails too.

They are fascinating pieces of work, aren't they?

What Brian does is frame and distort everything, and I mean absolutely everything. He even called our New Hampshire victory a victory. He had to. He's not going actually go to his financial supporters and sob over a loss.

I feel bad for his kids who will have to admit for the rest of their lives that he was their father.

I erased the email so I can't look back to what he said but he made it sound like there will be a vote in New Hampshire in the future but I thought NH wasn't able to put the issue on a ballot.

 

[Zingerific]

Marriage is absolutely a universal institution with very few exceptions.

Huh? If there are indeed "very few exceptions," as you grant, it's hardly "universal."

Anyway, the idea that marriage is somehow universal runs aground fairly quickly once it's recognized that the meaning of marriage has varied widely, even radically, over time and space.

Parenthetically, it's more honorable anyway to elevate the positions of our relationships to the universally recognized institution of marriage than to try and destroy that meaning in culture and force everyone to accept something more nebulous and little understood.

Honorable? Maybe I'm just an iconoclast, but I remain unmoved by any appeals to "honor." Honor makes me think of dueling popinjays and heroic (read moronic) last stands. What's so great about it?

Incidentally, the question of whether gay folks should have legal equality is different from whether or not marriage is a valuable institution; the two are too often equated.

All that said, I support the idea of getting government out of the marriage business entirely. But if we are going to have marriage, I certainly support same sex marriage.

 

[Zingerific]

Some abstract idea can be classified as universally applied with exceptions, and I'm sure that is something you have considered at least once in your life but more likely many times is the case. The point of my contention was to counter Pumpkin's point that marriage is not universal, when in fact it very nearly is. I didn't say that marriage is absolutely universal, but the exceptions where they do occur are so insignificant that the institution of marriage is actually universal. The meaning of marriage has stayed the same since the inception of civilization, which is a social relationship between individuals that engenders a family relationship.

My point is that it is precisely "the institution of marriage" that has not been the same. For a long time, marriage had nothing to do with "a social relationship between individuals that engenders a family relationship" and everything to do with property (dowries), legitimacy, and often dynastic politics.

I value dignity, but I don't speak for everyone.

I don't think dignity and honor are entirely interchangeable terms. Off the top of my head, I'd argue that "honor" connotes the esteem of others (especially when it comes to its use in the context of marriage), whereas "dignity" connotes to self-esteem.

 

[Zingerific]

You are arguing the various purposes, ends, and means of marriage rather than the definition.

Definitions are not set in stone, handed down from Mt. Sinai. They are fluid, just like the language itself. Try using a hundred year old dictionary. Or better yet, look at an annotated edition of Shakespeare (or middle english Chaucer). Words do not mean the same thing as they once did; they evolve, acquire new meanings and drop old ones, and shift in connotation. According to this etymological dictionary, the word "marry" didn't even appear in English until around 1300 or so.

As to what it is called I could care less. I would just prefer the word "marriage" be taken off the books, and replaced with a nice "secular" term that can't be linked to somebodies very old book of social mores.

Well put, Pumpkin.

 

[Zingerific]

Marriage existed before the inception of the English language

But it wasn't called marriage. It was called something else, in Latin or Greek or whatever. Calling whatever other societies do in different times and places "marriage" is actually anthropological sloppiness on our part, and it's close to question begging.

The point is that you tried to claim that the definition of marriage hasn't changed, and therefore is a universal concept. While I have my doubts about the universality of any concept, I am absolutely certain there is no such thing as a universal definition.

 

[Zingerific]

What isn't reality? That marriage has always been a bond between people to engender a familial relationship? Yes, it has despite differing traditions of eligibility and purpose.

Okay, first you claim that it's a "to engender a family," which I read as a purpose, and then you allow for "differing traditions of purpose." Huh?

Your way is a philosophical toy.

Now really. If anything is a philosophical toy, it's this timeless, universal idea of "marriage" that you have conjured out of thin air.

There has always been one term that everyone uses for it that directly translates to the modern English definition of marriage.

Oh lordy.... My whole point about the mutability of language is directly applicable here. There are never direct translations between languages -- there are only approximations. Why do you suppose there are so many translations of so many different works? I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Plato's Gorgias, and there are about five translations commonly used, each with their own virtues and drawbacks. If there were such a thing as a direct translation, only one would be needed, forever across time and space. Such a translation does not exist, and neither does your cross-cultural non-temporal notion of marriage.

 

[hotatlboi]

Same sex marriage is simple and elegant solution to inequality under the law for same sex couples because it invents nothing and rectifies a social problem at the same time.

Indeed, it has proven to be the path of least resistance for equality.

If you try to do away with civil marriage altogether, we would encounter 10x the opposition under the "gays are destroying marriage" argument than we see now.

As it is, it's a simple argument to say that being denied the ability to marry just because you are gay (without changing anything else) is simply a case of petty discrimination.

 

[Kulindahr]

My solution is an easy solution that will please no one. Take the term marriage off the books and replace it with civil unions for everyone. Simply state that a civil union is a contract between consenting adults and get over it. But, it would please no one because it makes too much damn sense.

it seems a lot of the hold up is over the term "marriage" and its connection to "religion". So, hell, replace it with civil union and be done with it. send them done to the court house sign the contract and if they want to get hitched in a church and have a marriage find and dandy. if they want to get hitched at voo doo donuts down in Portland Oregon fine and dandy.

civil union a contract between consenting adults. i could care less if it was m and m m and f or mmmfff or whatever. the arugements are getting tired. no side is willing to budge. so why not just forget the term. if it isn't a secular term take it out of the laws of the land and replace it with a secular term. like i said it would please no one because it makes sense.

You weren't here when I posted this; you might like it:

My proposal would be an act "Returning Sacred Marriage to Those of Faith", except with some fancy acronym that would make everyone want to vote for it. The whole argument would be that marriage belongs to the churches, and they should be in charge of it; marriage licenses would end, and churches could issue marriage certificates, which the couple would take to the court house to register their union.

The words "civil union" would have to be avoided, of course, due to their association with gay rights, so something like "domestic union" would have to do -- note that both those words come from the traditional Christian marriage ceremony!

Then after some period of time, like a presidential term, another act, "Equality in Domestic Relationships", would come along and say that any individuals who were entering a "domestic union" could be issued a certificate that would be taken to the court house, and their union be registered just like marriages. That would cover all the not-quite-church organizations which do marriage, and incidentally cover gay unions as well.

Ideally I'd have "registered union" for the legal term, because it indicates that the government's function is merely to record and keep track of unions that people have decided on. People of whatever gender (and number) would solemnify their union in whatever manner and place they chose, take their certificate to the
designated government place, and show it; the government person would merely register them as having entered into a union.

 

[Kulindahr]

Indeed, it has proven to be the path of least resistance for equality.

If you try to do away with civil marriage altogether, we would encounter 10x the opposition under the "gays are destroying marriage" argument than we see now.

As it is, it's a simple argument to say that being denied the ability to marry just because you are gay (without changing anything else) is simply a case of petty discrimination.

Not if you do it my way (see above post).


The whole problem, IMO, is that government is dabbling in something it shouldn't: freedom of association. By having those 1400 or 1600 laws that make the union of a man and a woman something special under the law, the government is discriminating against other forms of committed relationships -- and that's unconstitutional. So the solution is to just get government out of the definition business, and to shut up and take note of what people have decided to do, how they've decided to associate.