Tactics on yag marriage
A lot of debate is going on about how to deal with the political side of yag "marriage". Should there be a constitutional amendment to define marriage as "the union between one man and one woman"? Will activist judges find a right in the Constitution for yags to get married to people of their own sex? Even though straights will not have this right? Or would they? Hmm. Anyway. The politicians would be best advised to try to get the proponents of yag marriage to fight for a constitutional amendment establishing such a right, as I advocated before. So maybe the first step is not the "Defense of Marriage Act" but a finding that such a major change in the constitutional powers must come through an amendment process. So then all the arguments can be channeled into a decades-long amendment fight, like the ERA struggle in the '70s that was overtaken by evolutionary change. Then Bush can say he was leaving the decision to the people and not have to come out for or against the concept. That always makes politicians happy. All the activists, advocates and "progressives" will have a huge battle to engage in that will safely divert their energies. So they'll be happy. And they'll lose. Which will make me happy.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Fish or foul or yag?
The hubbub about gay marriage licenses being handed out like - well, like condoms at a high school - in San Francisco, couldn't help but remind me of the Monty Python skit about the fellow who comes in to a county office to renew his fish license. Remember? John Cleese says, "No, you can't have a fish license. We only license dogs." So Eric Idle, I think, shows him a paper which appears to say "Fish license". Cleese objects that he has crossed out the word "Dog" and put in the word "Fish". Similarly, in SF, apparently homosexuals have been altering standard marriage licenses. They've crossed out the words "Bride" and "Groom" and replaced them with "Applicant 1" and "Applicant 2" !! Or "Spouse for Life" or something as absurd. Parody is dead. Nothing remains to mock that hasn't been mocked by its own self. And of course, this is not supposed to affect in any way the nature of heterosexual marriage. Somehow "Here comes the Applicant 2" doesn't have quite the cachet of "Here comes the Bride".
Say, why is it these counter-culture "yags" = reverse gay, because they're not = are so into getting official sanction for their relationships? I thought they were going to overthrow old forms, not squeeze themselves into them like a bearded middleaged "Applicant 2" squeezing his paunch into a wedding gown? I guess the only consolation is that a family whose children all became yags would cease to exist.
Update: WorldNetDaily has more.
The hubbub about gay marriage licenses being handed out like - well, like condoms at a high school - in San Francisco, couldn't help but remind me of the Monty Python skit about the fellow who comes in to a county office to renew his fish license. Remember? John Cleese says, "No, you can't have a fish license. We only license dogs." So Eric Idle, I think, shows him a paper which appears to say "Fish license". Cleese objects that he has crossed out the word "Dog" and put in the word "Fish". Similarly, in SF, apparently homosexuals have been altering standard marriage licenses. They've crossed out the words "Bride" and "Groom" and replaced them with "Applicant 1" and "Applicant 2" !! Or "Spouse for Life" or something as absurd. Parody is dead. Nothing remains to mock that hasn't been mocked by its own self. And of course, this is not supposed to affect in any way the nature of heterosexual marriage. Somehow "Here comes the Applicant 2" doesn't have quite the cachet of "Here comes the Bride".
Say, why is it these counter-culture "yags" = reverse gay, because they're not = are so into getting official sanction for their relationships? I thought they were going to overthrow old forms, not squeeze themselves into them like a bearded middleaged "Applicant 2" squeezing his paunch into a wedding gown? I guess the only consolation is that a family whose children all became yags would cease to exist.
Update: WorldNetDaily has more.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The Love Conundrum
This whole gay marriage thing is really getting me bothered. It should be put up to a constitutional amendment process, for the simple reason that no one in his right mind could contend that the Federal Constitution, or that of any state, authorized the state to make laws about marriage as a "right" - or a privilege - pertaining to any arrangement other than that between one man and one woman. Does anyone seriously maintain any other position? Oh, that's right. Some of us nutty objectivists do say the state shouldn't have any power over marriage or - especially - love, since IT'S NOT MENTIONED IN ANY CONSTITUTION!!! This power has been extracted from constitutions by courts, who have also inferred other nutty powers. Taxation of income and female suffrage and ending slavery required amendments because the court system found that they were contrary to the constitution as written. Does anyone sincerely think the idea of gay "marriage" would survive the constitutional amendment process?
How would such an amendment read? How could it logically exclude polygamy, incest, even pedophilia? If the ground of a relationship legalized by state action is that the participants love each other, shouldn't that factor be subject to proof? How can people prove they love each other? Nowadays, a man and a woman do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married. They DO have to prove, if challenged, that they are man and woman, not man and frog or woman and Beast. But that's the only requirement. So how about it? What's the legally sufficient proof of love? PET scan results?
This whole gay marriage thing is really getting me bothered. It should be put up to a constitutional amendment process, for the simple reason that no one in his right mind could contend that the Federal Constitution, or that of any state, authorized the state to make laws about marriage as a "right" - or a privilege - pertaining to any arrangement other than that between one man and one woman. Does anyone seriously maintain any other position? Oh, that's right. Some of us nutty objectivists do say the state shouldn't have any power over marriage or - especially - love, since IT'S NOT MENTIONED IN ANY CONSTITUTION!!! This power has been extracted from constitutions by courts, who have also inferred other nutty powers. Taxation of income and female suffrage and ending slavery required amendments because the court system found that they were contrary to the constitution as written. Does anyone sincerely think the idea of gay "marriage" would survive the constitutional amendment process?
How would such an amendment read? How could it logically exclude polygamy, incest, even pedophilia? If the ground of a relationship legalized by state action is that the participants love each other, shouldn't that factor be subject to proof? How can people prove they love each other? Nowadays, a man and a woman do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married. They DO have to prove, if challenged, that they are man and woman, not man and frog or woman and Beast. But that's the only requirement. So how about it? What's the legally sufficient proof of love? PET scan results?
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