Congratulations, Mr. Fowler, on contriving such a twisted
and convoluted misdirection that it is worthy of the speech Shakespeare put
into the mouth of Mark Anthony “praising” Brutus and “damning” Caesar. It is truly impressive to see an American
public figure in the 21st century defend by use of the same the
reasoning behind the Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857) and mimic the cries of antebellum
slave-holding plantation aristocrats for their “rats” (sic, “rights”),
not to mention the days when interracial marriages in a state where they were
legal were prohibited from being recognized in others, such as Tennessee.
I want to thank you, Mr. Fowler, for reaffirming the need for
Tennesseans to feel shame and embarrassment on the world stage displayed by the
“Don’t Say Gay” bill in the legislature and the sectarian bigotry over the
building of a mosque suffocating the city of Murfreesboro. In case you haven’t been keeping up with
current international events, I suggest that a relocation to the Russian
Federation (which recently outlawed “gay propaganda”) might find you in a place
more fit to your views.
Marriage was made for man (i.e., humans), Mr. Fowler, not man
for marriage.
*****
David Fowler:
Bigotry And Intolerance Displayed In Tennessee
Last week I commented
on the fact that same-sex marriage advocates face a dilemma – will they
actually tell people what they believe marriage is and why they believe
it. But Collegedale, Tennessee, just outside Chattanooga, voted last week
to recognize same-sex marriages for certain purposes. Having now made
that bold move, the four city council members who voted for recognition have
some explaining to do, and that puts them on the horns of a dilemma.
Are they going
to do the right thing or just admit to the bigotry and intolerance their vote
exposed?
The City of
Collegedale voted last week to adopt a definition of “domestic partners” that BlueCross BlueShield
makes available to its policyholders, if they so choose. That definition
allows an unmarried employee of a business, or in this case, a city, to insure
his or her “significant other” and the children for whom the partners are
responsible.
The city could have
said that any employee cohabitating with another person of the same or opposite
sex whose relationship meets the definition of a “domestic partner” could have insurance that
would cover the employee’s partner and their children. All that would be
required would be that the two be in a loving and committed relationship. But
it did not do so.
Instead, the city
chose to recognize only those
“domestic partnerships” where a same-sex marriage had been performed in a state
like New York or Maryland that makes such marriages valid.
Apart from the fact
that the city council members who voted for the resolution violated their oath
the state’s constitution1, which forbids recognition of
same-sex marriages, understand what else they did in recognizing only certain
loving and committed relationships. And the best way to understand that
is to put their action in the context of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony
Kennedy’s recent opinion in the marriage cases.
In speaking of the
fact that the federal government wrongfully recognized only certain “moral and
sexual choices” – heterosexual ones, Justice Kennedy said:
The differentiation
(between same-sex marriages and natural marriages) demeans the (same-sex) couple,
whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects and whose relationship
the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of
children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes
it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and
closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their
community and in their daily lives.
Now what these four
city council members really did becomes more plain. In choosing to give
benefits to same-sex couples that are in a committed, loving relationship
and not to give those
same benefits to heterosexual couples who may have been cohabitating for years,
these council members:
- Chose to “demean” unmarried
heterosexual couples and their relationship, and
- “Humiliate” the children of unmarried
heterosexual couples and to make it “even more difficult for [their]
children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family.”
Moreover, they
“demeaned” those in polygamous relationships of love and commitment by
arbitrarily saying that only two
people can be in a committed, loving relationship. And they
“humiliated” their children, too.
This is now the
dilemma these council members face. They need to either:
- extend benefits to all those who are in
committed, loving relationships, regardless of number or sex, or
- admit publicly their own bias and
discriminatory attitude toward all cohabitating relationships involving
love and commitment that are not recognized by somebody as a marriage.
You see, these council
members want to grant moral equivalence to some relationships outside the
bounds of natural, heterosexual marriage, but not others. And the basis
for that supposed equivalence — love and commitment — they are unwilling to apply to
everyone fairly and equally. And in not doing so, these four advocates for
same-sex marriage on Collegedale’s City Council have put on display for all to
see their moral bigotry and intolerance toward all loving and committed relationships.
1 The
city’s resolution says that it is not unconstitutionally recognizing same-sex
marriage because the resolution “is not meant to confer legal recognition or a
right, privilege or responsibility on any particular relationship.” To
say that the resolution gives those who have a same-sex marriage license a
legal right to family health insurance, but that the resolution “is not meant
to confer legal recognition or a right, privilege or responsibility to any
particular relationship” is one of the most illogical, nonsensical, and
internally incoherent statements I have ever read in my life.
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