Posted on 05/18/2011 5:33:20 PM PDT by rhema
The Minnesota Legislature is considering whether to allow Minnesotans to vote on the legal definition of marriage. The proposed constitutional amendment presents voters with the question, "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?" A "yes" vote for the amendment simply confirms the existing definition of marriage in the state Constitution.
Opponents of the proposed amendment charge defenders of the current definition of marriage with bigotry and discrimination. They say we cannot trust Minnesota voters with this important decision. But in Minnesota all political power is inherent in the people, and it is not bigotry to believe that a child needs a mother and a father. It is not discrimination to believe that the legal institution of marriage is about children's needs, more than adult desires.
There is widespread agreement that marriage is a unique relationship between one man and one woman. In the past 12 years, voters in 30 states have passed constitutional amendments protecting marriage as the union of husband and wife. Forty-five states now, either through constitutional, legislative or judicial action, recognize marriage as only the union between a man and a woman.
This overwhelming consensus reflects people's understanding that the legal institution of marriage is about something more than just love or affection. And that something is children.
The legal definition of marriage is based on two simple facts: sex makes babies, and babies need their mom and their dad. Ask any parent of an "oops baby" and they can tell you that sex makes babies, often independent of the couple's intentions. Once born, babies need adults to care for them, and usually that care is best provided by the man and the woman who created the child. Moms are usually pretty easy to identify, but identifying the dad can be far more difficult. By getting married, a couple announces their intention to have sex and the man accepts legal responsibility as the father of any child that results. Marriage is a much more effective way of insuring men parent the children they create than an Orwellian world of universal DNA testing and child support laws.
Some object that not all marriages produce children, and some couples intend not to have children at all. They say marriage is not about the creation and nurturing of children, but the love of the couple. It is true that not all marriages produce children, but all children need a mother and a father. Common sense and social science tell us that a child has the best chance of growing into a happy and healthy adult if she is raised in a low-conflict home by her biological parents.
This does not mean that many children are not successfully raised through the heroic efforts of a single parent, or by generous sterile couples who adopt. Yet both single and adoptive parents will tell you their circumstances involved unique struggles and sacrifices, both for themselves and their children. Marriage is one way our society tried to minimize these struggles.
By redefining marriage to include any two consenting adults, the legal function of marriage is radically changed. What historically has been grounded in a sexual union that, more often than not, created and nurtured the next generation, instead becomes rooted in the emotional attraction of any two adults. It is hard to see why the government should attempt to regulate emotions that attract one person to another. Regulation or recognition of emotions has never been the governmental purpose of marriage.
There are strong political forces trying to redefine marriage. Three same-sex couples are before the Minnesota Court of Appeals demanding that marriage be redefined as a matter of constitutional law. Last year a bill was introduced in the state Legislature that would have abolished marriage, substituting genderless "civil unions" in its place.
The proposed marriage amendment recognizes the gravity of these attacks and places the definition of marriage where it should be - before the people. Voters in 30 other states have had their say on the constitutional definition of marriage. It is time that Minnesotans have their turn.
Teresa Collett is a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas. Stephen J. Heaney is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.
The proposed marriage amendment recognizes the gravity of these attacks and places the definition of marriage where it should be - before the people. Voters in 30 other states have had their say on the constitutional definition of marriage. It is time that Minnesotans have their turn.
Can we vote on the definition of other words too??
No, wait, that would require supermajorities to pass, rather than the bang of a liberal's gavel.
This is an excellent essay. It would be more forthright to say that the homosexual and deviant political movement is working to destroy marriage as a hallmark social institution for the betterment of society, that has the (to them) inconvenient, even intolerable side effect of limelighting their own deviancy and degeneracy.
Teresa Collett was the GOP candidates for US House of Representative from MN District for Ramsey County in the 2010 election cycle (from St. Paul). Unfortunately she lost to Betty McCallum, a ditzy typical Democrat.
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Homosexuals want same sex "marriage" for two reasons. One is to dismantle the natural family and destroy morality, thus entirely changing society into their liking. The secondary reason is finanical benefits; but that is definitely not as important to them. For one thing, they have said so in their own words, and second, not that many homosexuals even get "married" when it is made legal. Another point is that homosexual activists do not want the citizens to be able to vote on this (most of them anyway) since even in CA the people keep voting it down, time after time. The homo-agenda pushers need Judges Gone Wild and slimy legislators to force it on us.
And here they prove what you said, in their own words.
From LA Times of March 12: ...
“Divided over gay marriage” by Roy Rivenburg Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor who runs the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, recommends legalizing a wide variety of marriage alternatives, including polyamory, or group wedlock. An example could include a lesbian couple living with a sperm-donor father, or a network of men and women who share sexual relations.
One aim, she says, is to break the stranglehold that married heterosexual couples have on health benefits and legal rights. The other goal is to “push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society.” ... [snip]
An excerpt from: In Their Own Words: The Homosexual Agenda:
“Homosexual activist Michelangelo Signorile, who writes periodically for The New York Times, summarizes the agenda in OUT magazine (Dec/Jan 1994):
“A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes, but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution... The most subversive action lesbian and gay men can undertake —and one that would perhaps benefit all of society—is to transform the notion of family entirely.”
“Its the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statues, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into the public schools and in short to usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us.”
Chris Crain, the editor of the Washington Blade has stated that all homosexual activists should fight for the legalization of same-sex marriage as a way of gaining passage of federal anti-discrimination laws that will provide homosexuals with federal protection for their chosen lifestyle.
Crain writes: “...any leader of any gay rights organization who is not prepared to throw the bulk of their efforts right now into the fight for marriage is squandering resources and doesn’t deserve the position.” (Washington Blade, August, 2003).
Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual activist writing in his book, Virtually Normal, says that once same-sex marriage is legalized, heterosexuals will have to develop a greater “understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman.”
He notes: “The truth is, homosexuals are not entirely normal; and to flatten their varied and complicated lives into a single, moralistic model is to miss what is essential and exhilarating about their otherness.” (Sullivan, Virtually Normal, pp. 202-203)
Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor and homosexual activist has said:
“Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. . Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family; and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of reality.” (partially quoted in “Beyond Gay Marriage,”
Stanley Kurtz, The Weekly Standard, August 4, 2003)
Evan Wolfson has stated:
“Isn’t having the law pretend that there is only one family model that works (let alone exists) a lie? . marriage is not just about procreation-indeed is not necessarily about procreation at all. “(quoted in “What Marriage Is For,” by Maggie Gallagher, The Weekly Standard, August 11, 2003)
Mitchel Raphael, editor of the Canadian homosexual magazine Fab, says:
“Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage. I’d be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of ‘till death do us part’ and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play.” (quoted in “Now Free To Marry, Canada’s Gays Say, ‘Do I?’” by Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, August 31, 2003)
1972 Gay Rights Platform Demands: “Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit.”
[Also among the demands was the elimination of all age of consent laws.]
I thought that the University of St. Thomas was pretty firmly in the grasp of hard left politics. Will these two writers have jobs next week?
Saved to media, thanx. I had the Signorile quote (I think he wrote that when his day job was writing for the Village Voice), it's a benchmark reference quote on the subject.
The Crain quote is also essential to understanding the homoactivists' bad faith in argument, and why it's essential to address the undecideds and Reagan Democrats out there, and not bother about engaging the gay Mau-Mau's on their own terms and answering their taunts and barbs.
Crain also points to what they really want -- which is federal prosecution of "non-reconciling" Christians and other people who enter moral judgments against their perversion, or refer to their deviancy as, precisely, deviant. Presumably, the protection laws would form the shield, and "hate speech" laws the sword, with which they would wage war on the First Amendment rights of their betters.
Speaking of Reagan Democrats, have you seen this FR thread about a socially-conservative Hispanic Democrat congresscritter?
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If you want fresh tears, they are voting on it today on the House Floor. The DFL is crying and whining. So glad this is televised for my entertainment
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