Comments on: A depressing setback for marriage

By: mike_b1

mike_b1 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:25:04 +0000

Bob, we’re arguing different things. The problem with a referendum is that it overcomes by events the intent of the framers. A referendum is a tool of democracy. The US, however, is a republic. Implicit in the Constitution is the notion that individual’s voices would be heard not directly but through their elected officials.

By: Bob Fontaine

Bob Fontaine — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:40:55 +0000

Mike_B1, you suggest “What the consensus opinion of the electorate on a given issue, then, is by design irrelevant”. In this instance the voters were not choosing candidates who were to decide the issue, they were voting on the issue directly. While I have not fully formulated my opinion on that specific matter at hand, I do respect the will of the people, even when i dont agree with it. That said, I neither find the will of the people “offensive” as Dan stated, nor “irrelevant” as you suggest. I think it a much more dangerous circumstance when another, who’s voice should be no louder than my own, would characterize it as either irrelevant or offensive, than I do the possible injustice of not being defined by a “word”. We can’t even define “marriage”, but we pretty much know what it means when we are told that our opinion is irrelevant.

By: Newshound

Newshound — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:49:42 +0000

Brad Delton – I think you come very close to offering an acceptable solution to an impossible problem.

By: mike_b1

mike_b1 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:08:27 +0000

Brad, your argument sounds a lot like Mike Kinsley’s essay in Slate years ago.

Here’s the link: http://slate.msn.com/id/2085127/

tobe, almost any time Dan invokes the Red Sox, he gets a huge response, too. We’re still several scores short of the “record.” Funny post, though.

By: tobe

tobe — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:18:42 +0000

Wow. Talk about a hot button issue. Media Nation hasn’t had this many comments since you offered that free iPhone deal. Oh wait, no free iPhone deal? Then this must be the most commented on post ever.

By: Brad Deltan

Brad Deltan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:15:49 +0000

Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass who marries who or for what reason. The problem here is not marriage, the problem is the ridiculous amount of civil and legal rights that the state has associated with marriage.

Property ownership, living wills, spousal privilege, differences in the tax code, parental rights…the list goes on and on. By denying marriage to gays, you deny an incredible range of social and civil benefits to them as well.

Many of you ask some variation if we feel it “okay” if a man marries his sister. I put another question to you: is it okay if a woman raises a child from birth, for seventeen years, but then has all parental rights stripped away from her because cannot legally be married to the biological mother? Or what if the biological mother needs child support after separation? Whoops – too bad, your relationship had no legal standing.

The argument lends itself to civil unions, true. And if civil unions truly were “marriage in all but name” then I wouldn’t mind…but that sounds an awful lot like “separate but equal”. Whether legal or not, there’s an awful lot of authority figures…police, doctors, clergy, judges…who will lend a hand when it’s your “spouse” but curl it into a fist when it’s your “domestic partner”. And that’s assuming it really is the same civil benefits, which once you cross state lines it usually isn’t…unlike marriage.

Perhaps what gays should be pushing for is not so much for gay marriage, but instead for getting the government out the marriage business entirely. Give everything…gay or straight…a “civil union” and that’s all you get from the town clerk. If you want a “marriage”, too? Fine, go see your local religious official…but a marriage won’t mean anything in the eyes of the state.

By the way, the anti-gay marriage crowd won the vote with ads that spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) like how some mythical “homosexual agenda” would be taught in pre-school or some crap like that. That’s not about the “sanctity of marriage” – that’s hate-mongering, pure and simple. That’s starting the base assumption that homosexuality is inherently evil and then shamelessly exploiting the concept of “protect the children” to whip people into a frenzy about it.

By: Newshound

Newshound — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:19:15 +0000

JennaMcWilliams – absolutely. If short people can’t get married the same should apply to gays. Tall people and athletes too.

I don’t discriminate and our laws shouldn’t either. All of us are entitled to individual preferences.

By: lkcape

lkcape — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:50:11 +0000

Instead of using the loaded word “marriage” to describe what we are talking about, why not have the Congress legislate that hence forth it shall be called a radical new term that will take it out of all this truly unseemly semantic nitpicking.

Let’s hear it for universal consortanfiddle!

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:43:53 +0000

Mike_b1: I’ll go one better, even though it applies more to other states than to Maine in this case. The courts are there to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Even a majority of elected legislators.

By: mike_b1

mike_b1 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:36:27 +0000

Bob Fontaine, all that leaves out one critical concept: the US is a republic, not a democracy, and as such we delegate our rights to elected officials to decide. What the consensus opinion of the electorate on a given issue, then, is by design irrelevant. We vote, they decide.