Homosexual marriage is not a civil rights issue

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
3/7/2004

"HOMOSEXUAL marriage is not a civil rights issue. But that hasn't stopped the advocates of same-sex marriage from draping themselves in the glory of the civil rights movement -- and smearing the defenders of traditional marriage as the moral equal of segregationists.

In The New York Times last Sunday, cultural critic Frank Rich, quoting a "civil rights lawyer," beatified the gay and lesbian couples lining up to receive illegal marriage licenses from San Francisco's new mayor, Gavin Newsom:

"An act as unremarkable as getting a wedding license has been transformed by the people embracing it, much as the unremarkable act of sitting at a Formica lunch counter was transformed by an act of civil disobedience at a Woolworth's in North Carolina 44 years ago this month." Nearby, the Times ran a photograph of a smiling lesbian couple in matching wedding veils -- and an even larger photograph of a 1960 lunch counter sit-in.

Rich's essay -- "The Joy of Gay Marriage" -- went on to cast the supporters of traditional marriage as hateful zealots. They are "eager to foment the bloodiest culture war possible," he charged. "They are gladly donning the roles played by Lester Maddox and George Wallace in the civil rights era."

But it is the marriage radicals like Rich and Newsom who are doing their best to inflame a culture war. And as is so often the case in wartime, truth -- in this case, historical truth -- has been an early casualty.

For contrary to what Rich seems to believe, when Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain approached the lunch counter of the Elm Street Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960, all they asked for was a bite to eat. The four North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College students only wanted what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms -- the same food at the same counter at the same price.

Those first four sit-in strikers, like the thousands of others who would emulate them at lunch counters across the South, weren't demanding that Woolworth's prepare or serve their food in ways it had never been prepared or served before. They weren't trying to do something that had never been lawful in any state of the union. They weren't bent on forcing a revolutionary change upon a timeless social institution.

All they were seeking was what should already have been theirs under the law of the land. The 14th Amendment had declared that blacks no less than whites were entitled to equal protection of the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had barred discrimination in public accommodations.

But the Supreme Court had gutted those protections with shameful decisions in 1883 and 1896. The court's betrayal of black Americans was the reason why, more than six decades later, segregation still polluted so much of the nation. To restore the 14th Amendment to its original purpose, to re-create the Civil Rights Act, to return to black citizens the equality that had been stolen from them -- that was the great cause of civil rights.

The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing. They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor.

Last month, as Massachusetts lawmakers prepared to debate a constitutional amendment on the meaning of marriage, the state's leading black clergy came out strongly in support of the age-old definition: the union of a man and a woman. They were promptly tarred as enemies of civil rights. "Martin Luther King," one left-wing legislator barked, "is rolling over in his grave at a statement like this."

But if anything has King spinning in his grave, it is the indecency of exploiting his name for a cause he never supported. The civil rights movement for which he lived and died was grounded in a fundamental truth: All God's children are created equal. The same-sex marriage movement, by contrast, is grounded in the denial of a fundamental truth: The Creator who made us equal made us male and female. That duality has always and everywhere been the starting point for marriage. To claim that marriage can ignore that duality is akin to the claim, back when lunch counters were segregated, that America was a land of liberty and justice for all."

- Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe 03-07-04
 

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
58,686
3
0
Another one of these?

The SCOTUS has already declared marriage as a basic civil right, a fundamental right. I'm willing to bet my left nut that they'll include same-sex marriage under that umbrella.
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Originally posted by: conjur
Another one of these?

The SCOTUS has already declared marriage as a basic civil right, a fundamental right. I'm willing to bet my left nut that they'll include same-sex marriage under that umbrella.

but this was posted in the globe, the most liberal rag out there, or at least one of them....so you loonie libs have to agree with it :)
 

Martin

Lifer
Jan 15, 2000
29,178
1
81
So anti-gay marriage folks don't want to be compared to segregationists, they want to be compared to the people who were against making black people equal in the first place? Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
So anti-gay marriage folks don't want to be compared to segregationists, they want to be compared to the people who were against making black people equal in the first place? Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.

funny, but I thought this was one of the better quotes:

"The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing. They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor."
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
0
71
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
So anti-gay marriage folks don't want to be compared to segregationists, they want to be compared to the people who were against making black people equal in the first place? Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.

funny, but I thought this was one of the better quotes:

"The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing. They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor."

it depends on where one draws the baseline.

the premise is for the author, marriages = hetero sexual.

premise for pro gay marriages is marriages = hetero OR Homo sexual.

nothing he says will convince someone who's premise is the later because he does NOTHING to attack the premise, he just attacks based on HIS premises alone, hence making his argument persuasive if you accept his premise.

a good argument will present BOTH premises and explain why the 2nd premise is faulty. he doesn't really do that.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
9,396
0
0
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: TheSnowman
if you unbold that i might be inclined to read it.

your wish is my command

thank you, it was hard on my eyes with the bold; now it is just hard on my sense of reason. homosexuals never had the right to marry just like blacks never had the right to vote, both are civil rights issues.
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Originally posted by: TheSnowman thank you, it was hard on my eyes with the bold; now it is just hard on my sense of reason. homosexuals never had the right to marry just like blacks never had the right to vote, both are civil rights issues.


It is easy snowman, as said:

all they asked for was a bite to eat.

only wanted what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms

the same food at the same counter at the same price.

They weren't demanding that Woolworth's prepare or serve their food in ways it had never been prepared or served before.

They weren't trying to do something that had never been lawful in any state of the union.

They weren't bent on forcing a revolutionary change upon a timeless social institution.

All they were seeking was what should already have been theirs under the law of the land.

The 14th Amendment had declared that blacks no less than whites were entitled to equal protection of the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had barred discrimination in public accommodations.

Now on the other hand....

The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing.

They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage."

They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth:

They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else.

They want it on entirely new terms.

They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had

they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law.


Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor.
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
0
71
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: TheSnowman thank you, it was hard on my eyes with the bold; now it is just hard on my sense of reason. homosexuals never had the right to marry just like blacks never had the right to vote, both are civil rights issues.


It is easy snowman, as said:

all they asked for was a bite to eat.

only wanted what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms

the same food at the same counter at the same price.

They weren't demanding that Woolworth's prepare or serve their food in ways it had never been prepared or served before.

They weren't trying to do something that had never been lawful in any state of the union.

They weren't bent on forcing a revolutionary change upon a timeless social institution.

All they were seeking was what should already have been theirs under the law of the land.

The 14th Amendment had declared that blacks no less than whites were entitled to equal protection of the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had barred discrimination in public accommodations.

Now on the other hand....

The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing.

They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage."

They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth:

They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else.

They want it on entirely new terms.

They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had

they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law.


Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor.

strong on the original thinking there aren't you. ;)
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

strong on the original thinking there aren't you. ;)

Why try to re-write what was already written well once? just clarifying by breaking it up...didn't you learn anything in school?
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Damn, Planinum, you and Snowman are brutal.

if that is your definition of brutal then wow...

pretty tame if you ask me...

not my fault the two of them have problems with basic comprehension... ok, now I know..next time just for snow I will write it out in crayon and post a link to the picture.
 

TheBDB

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2002
3,176
0
0
I'm not impressed by the article. All the black kids wanted was what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms? All homosexuals want is what any heterosexual might want, and on precisely the same terms......
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
0
71
Originally posted by: TheBDB
I'm not impressed by the article. All the black kids wanted was what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms? All homosexuals want is what any heterosexual might want, and on precisely the same terms......

see, it depends on your premises.

TheBDB here sees the definition of marriage as a union between 2 individuals regardless of gender.

the author of the article assumes that marriage is ONLY a union between 2 individuals of opposite gender.

hence, for some the article makes sense for others it doesn't BUT it does NOT argue the point well because it COMPLETELY ignores the fact that people approach the subject matter with COMPLETELY different premises.

Bozack in his small minded world LIKE the author COMPLETELY dismisses that possibility.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,709
6,266
126
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: conjur
Another one of these?

The SCOTUS has already declared marriage as a basic civil right, a fundamental right. I'm willing to bet my left nut that they'll include same-sex marriage under that umbrella.

but this was posted in the globe, the most liberal rag out there, or at least one of them....so you loonie libs have to agree with it :)

Last time I checked, Dittoheads were Conservatives. ;)
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,616
6,717
126
""HOMOSEXUAL marriage is not a civil rights issue. But that hasn't stopped the advocates of same-sex marriage from draping themselves in the glory of the civil rights movement -- and smearing the defenders of traditional marriage as the moral equal of segregationists.

In The New York Times last Sunday, cultural critic Frank Rich, quoting a "civil rights lawyer," beatified the gay and lesbian couples lining up to receive illegal marriage licenses from San Francisco's new mayor, Gavin Newsom:

"An act as unremarkable as getting a wedding license has been transformed by the people embracing it, much as the unremarkable act of sitting at a Formica lunch counter was transformed by an act of civil disobedience at a Woolworth's in North Carolina 44 years ago this month." Nearby, the Times ran a photograph of a smiling lesbian couple in matching wedding veils -- and an even larger photograph of a 1960 lunch counter sit-in.

Rich's essay -- "The Joy of Gay Marriage" -- went on to cast the supporters of traditional marriage as hateful zealots. They are "eager to foment the bloodiest culture war possible," he charged. "They are gladly donning the roles played by Lester Maddox and George Wallace in the civil rights era."

But it is the marriage radicals like Rich and Newsom who are doing their best to inflame a culture war. And as is so often the case in wartime, truth -- in this case, historical truth -- has been an early casualty."
--------
The only people inflamed are the bigots and it's their bigotry that's is being inflamed.
---------
"For contrary to what Rich seems to believe, when Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain approached the lunch counter of the Elm Street Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960, all they asked for was a bite to eat. The four North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College students only wanted what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms -- the same food at the same counter at the same price."
---------------
All gays want to to get married like everybody else.
--------

"Those first four sit-in strikers, like the thousands of others who would emulate them at lunch counters across the South, weren't demanding that Woolworth's prepare or serve their food in ways it had never been prepared or served before. They weren't trying to do something that had never been lawful in any state of the union."
---------
Gays want the same wedding.
---------------

" They weren't bent on forcing a revolutionary change upon a timeless social institution."
------------
The hell they weren't. They were revolting against the ancient separate but equal food place crap, institutionalized racism. What isn't revolutionary to the modern mind will be no more revolutionary than gay marriage to more intelligent people of the future. Revolutionary is relative to time and place.
----------

"All they were seeking was what should already have been theirs under the law of the land. The 14th Amendment had declared that blacks no less than whites were entitled to equal protection of the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had barred discrimination in public accommodations."
--------------
Same for gays.
--------------

"But the Supreme Court had gutted those protections with shameful decisions in 1883 and 1896. The court's betrayal of black Americans was the reason why, more than six decades later, segregation still polluted so much of the nation. To restore the 14th Amendment to its original purpose, to re-create the Civil Rights Act, to return to black citizens the equality that had been stolen from them -- that was the great cause of civil rights."

-----------
What a joke. The betrayal was a reversal of the original betrayal that said blacks aren't fully men. What, you have to be F'ed over twice to get your civil rights?
---------------------

"The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing."
-----------------
What a joke. You can say restored because it was revoked. That is a meaningless artifact of history. So we enslave gays and free um and enslave um again and then we can call their quest civil rights. The author is a sophisticated lying asshole trying to build a case on cleverness. It's transparent and absurd if you are thinking and unbigoted as you read.
-------------
"They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage."

-------------
Only that tiny weeny little thing. Gee aren't they complainers. The author is an arrogant ass too. :D

"They cloak (like evil communists, I bet) their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth (He means it sounds too much like the truth): They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. (New is bad right. We are all conservatives who fear the new, right. No new shoes for me, Oh no.) They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, (exactly, was never allowed to have before because of bigotry and discrimination)and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, (Just like how the blacks got free, by that horrible supreme court ruling they are equal, gee)for example, or by mayors flouting the law (or black bastards in the back of the bus). Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. (Yeah it is)But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor.(probably not)

Last month, as Massachusetts lawmakers prepared to debate a constitutional amendment on the meaning of marriage, the state's leading black clergy came out strongly in support of the age-old definition: the union of a man and a woman. They were promptly tarred as enemies of civil rights. "Martin Luther King," one left-wing legislator barked, "is rolling over in his grave at a statement like this."(Let him roll over, but I doubt he would. There's nothing says black people aren't bigots too)

But if anything has King spinning in his grave,(like this bigoted ass is worthy of kissing Kings foot) it is the indecency (Indecency of exploiting his name. Maybe the author didn't notice he's exploiting King's name with these very words. Blind bastard too) of exploiting his name for a cause he never supported. (He was working on another issue, the one proper to him and his time. Doesn't make him a homophobic bigot because he wasn't marching for gays)The civil rights movement for which he lived and died was grounded in a fundamental truth: All God's children are created equal. (And that includes gays) The same-sex marriage movement, by contrast, is grounded in the denial of a fundamental truth: The Creator who made us equal made us male and female. (And now for the open bigotry where God comes in to condemn. God mad gays too or nature did, one of the two) That duality has always and everywhere been the st
(Color always was the starting point when you couldn't marry inter-racially) To claim that marriage can ignore that duality (which one, the one about color?) is akin to the claim, back when lunch counters were segregated, that America was a land of liberty and justice for all." (To claim that orientation and color aren't two analogous dualities is to be blind to your own prejudice.)
-----------
Sorry, bozak, but the author has a bad case of bigotry.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,616
6,717
126
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Damn, Planinum, you and Snowman are brutal.

if that is your definition of brutal then wow...

pretty tame if you ask me...

not my fault the two of them have problems with basic comprehension... ok, now I know..next time just for snow I will write it out in crayon and post a link to the picture.

You posted that drivel and you talk about comprehension. Please.

Maybe not so much brutal as funny. They both made me laugh. of course I got the joke. You may have missed it. :D
 

Martin

Lifer
Jan 15, 2000
29,178
1
81
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
So anti-gay marriage folks don't want to be compared to segregationists, they want to be compared to the people who were against making black people equal in the first place? Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.

funny, but I thought this was one of the better quotes:

"The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing. They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor."

And I thought one of the better ones was:

students only wanted what any white customer might want, and on precisely the same terms -- the same food at the same counter at the same price.

Same wedding, at the same venue at the same price. The same rights in the same country with the same responsbilities and benefits.

I hope you see the point.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,398
8,566
126
Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
So anti-gay marriage folks don't want to be compared to segregationists, they want to be compared to the people who were against making black people equal in the first place? Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.

funny, but I thought this was one of the better quotes:

"The marriage radicals, on the other hand, seek to restore nothing. They have not been deprived of the right to marry -- only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically -- by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights. But dare to speak against it, and you are no better than Bull Connor."

it depends on where one draws the baseline.

the premise is for the author, marriages = hetero sexual.

premise for pro gay marriages is marriages = hetero OR Homo sexual.

nothing he says will convince someone who's premise is the later because he does NOTHING to attack the premise, he just attacks based on HIS premises alone, hence making his argument persuasive if you accept his premise.

a good argument will present BOTH premises and explain why the 2nd premise is faulty. he doesn't really do that.
you're asking for logic from a newspaper and an internet message board? to explain why the law should be the way it is (which rarely has logic as the motive, more likely convenience or some sense of justice by the justices)
 

Gen Stonewall

Senior member
Aug 8, 2001
629
0
0
Here's something I wrote from a different thread; it would apply here also:

Heterosexual monogamous marriage was instituted at the beginning of civilization (if you look at the book of Genesis it extends to the beginning of humanity) in order to provide a means in which the complementary aspects of a man and a woman could be used to provide a sheltered environment for strengthening families and raising children.

Monogamous heterosexual marriage is one of the cornerstones of a stong society and is the superior manner in which to raise strong, moral children (so say 10,000 years of history).

Legalizing homosexual marriage violates the principle that the state recognizes marriage in order to ensure that strong families, and hence a stong society, be built. When people argue that marriage is all about love between two people, they forget why it was instituted in the first place. If marriage should be extended to any two people deeply in love, then it should also be extended to close family members and to people in love with more than one person. This doesn't happen because it would lead to a substantial degree to the dissolution of the family.

I pointed out earlier that if love were the only interest that the state had in mind when it set bounds for marriage, then it would have permitted us to marry relatives and to marry more than one person. The state (and the Judeo-Christian world) has recognized monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, more than an institution to kindle love or a way to reproduce, as the supreme mechanism to raise children and form strong families and a strong society. Any different mechanism is less than ideal.
 

YellowRose

Senior member
Apr 22, 2003
247
0
0
Now lets look at this. Two couples A and B. Both couples live in the same town. Both couples are American citizens.

Couple A goes to the local city/county clerk to secure a marriage lic. They then decide if they want a Church wedding or a Civil wedding. Say they choose a Civil wedding. They then get married and have a child or two. One member then decides after 5 years of marriage and 2 kids that He (purpose of argument) wants a divorce. They file their paperwork in the local civil court and then they are eventually divorced.

Key points: Marriage obtained by the States agent which is a local gov entity.
********: Couple A is married.
********: Couple A decides to get a Divorce and to obtain that divorce they must go thru the local courts as prescribed by the State.
Couple A is a Hetro couple.

Couple B who are gay decide that they wish to get married. They go to same local officals that Couple A went to. They are denied a marriage lic. by the local gov officals who issued one to Couple A.

Both couples are American Citizens so why is Couple B denied the same rights as Couple A.
What makes Couple A special that they receive the full rights of an American Citizen and Couple B are denied those same rights.