LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – After failing to stop recent gay marriage approvals in several states, opponents have found an attractive, telegenic poster woman in Miss California, a move reminiscent of beauty queen Anita Bryant’s 1970s crusade against gay rights.
Miss California, a Christian college student named Carrie Prejean, joined in a television ad campaign against gay marriage this week, upsetting homosexual rights advocates, including a head of the Miss California pageant.
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In the 1970s, another beauty queen named Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma, became a voice against homosexuality after leading a campaign to repeal a Miami-area gay rights ordinance. She was famously quoted as saying, “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail-biters.”In contrast to Bryant’s bluntness, Prejean has said she means “no offense,” a phrase she used at the Miss USA pageant while answering a question from gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton by stating, “in my country and in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
No offense, Miss California, but you’re an empty-headed closed-minded bigot. It’s too bad when people use their celebrity to spread hate, which is exactly what you’re doing. Saying “no offense” doesn’t make your backwards comments inoffensive, rather it proves how clueless you are about the damage you are doing. Enjoy your 15 minutes, Miss California, too bad you didn’t use them for peace, or love, or health, or food, or tolerance, or anything else positive.
Dave,
While I agree with you in theory that we should get rid of marriage altogether and replace it with civil unions the obstacles to doing this are nearly impossible to overcome so lets first do the easier task of granting same sex couples the right to marry and then we can work on changing everyone over to civil unions later. We now have 4 states with marriage equality, several more will follow suit in the next few weeks, and the momentum is growing. I think that we are on the verge of seeing marriage equality snowball in this nation.
Godless and Dave,
I believe both sides are getting lost in semantics. There are millions of religious people with the notion that gays do not deserve to be on the same level as a man and a woman, or even worse, that gays using the same word as them somehow destroys their marriage. On the other side, there seem to be gays that are more concerned with terminology than they are equal rights and being legally joined with their significant other. I understand that nobody wants to drop down on a knee and say “Lover, will you civilly unite with me?” but the state has no power to prevent you from using the word marriage or any other term you’d like outside of their courts.
I would love to see every state adopt same-sex marriage rights as it would be a slap in the face to fundamentalists who think they run the country, but even if the scenario Dave described is the final outcome what’s to complain about?
If the government is going to be in the business of regulating — and attaching specialized legal rights to — a religious institution (marriage in this case), then it must provide those same legal rights to ALL its citizens.
I think it’s imperative that those of us who understand this principle better reframe the debate so that the RR is no longer able to leverage homophobia. I believe there would be a big shift in public opinion of gay marriage if the RR was less effective in their fear mongering. If people fully understood that not only is this an equal rights issue and why, but were also made aware of why it is unconstitutional for the government to be regulating a religious institution and giving out specialized rights to a select group, this would no longer be such a contentious social issue.
In some respects, I think Carrie Prejean (like many Americans) has fallen victim to the RR’s propaganda. I’d hope that if it were pointed out why this movement to deny U.S. citizens equal rights is unconstitutional, she would reconsider her position.
Whats to complain about is knowing that having a different term for gay unions, no matter that they infer the same rights as straight unions, enshrines a difference between gay and straight people in the minds of Americans. Gaining the freedom to choose marriage is about much more than just marriage equality, it is about normalising homosexuality in our society and this can only be done if we have same sex mariage and we call it marriage.
Anything less than this is unacceptable.
Yahweh says:
Don’t PRAY in our forums and we won’t THINK in your churches!
Charlie says:
most exactly….and for clarification read the rest of Yahweh’s paragraph
Godless I understand that and sympathize with you, but as Dave suggested, what if the line drawn was not between gay and straight marriages but between religious and secular unions. I would have no issue entering a union rather than a marriage (although my girlfriend might).
This all reminds be of the Dr. Seuss book “The Sneetches.” Some of them get Xs put on there stomach to differentiate between the others, the others figure it out so they get Xs too, and then the original group gets their Xs removed. In the end they just figure out that they can’t tell anyone apart and they’re all pretty much the same. The Xs accomplished nothing and really all that happened was that the guy who put Xs on their stomachs made a boatload of money.
The lawyers fighting on both sides of this case are the only ones really benefitting from the war over words. (Not the case in states where gays still don’t have full rights) I’ve never experience discrimination first hand, so it’s tough for me to speak with the experience godless has, but I’m content with whatever label they want to put on my unions, as long as my rights are not restricted.
and for continued clarification…for me….our forums = our public life
if I may politely add sir Yahweh the brilliant
fuck the sanctity of marriage…..stupid religion hijacking ones dignity…fu
Show Me
Are you saying that all marriages sanctioned by the government should be reclassified as unions?
Yes, for legal purposes anyway. What’s the difference outside of the word Marriage?
David Silverman says:
May 4, 2009 at 12:19 am
As I’ve said before, marriage is the “poster child” for why church and state need to be separate, because marriage is a melding of the two. Marriage is BOTH civil and religious. The simple solution is right in front of us: separate church and state.
And here’s the simple way: Make marriage religious only. Nonreligious officiants perform civil unions to any two people who wish to be joined. All members of clergy, and anyone else who wants the job, are automatically marriage officiants, and all weddings are civil unions. But since marriage is a religious practice the state has no control over who gets married, and who a church refuses to marry (note that churches already regularly refuse to marry STRAIGHT PEOPLE who aren’t from their church, or not religious enough, etc).
The result is not gay marriage, but it is gay equality. Gays and straights will have the option of going to a JP/judge/whoever to get joined, or finding a religious org to marry them.
Yes. Marriages are a kind of civil union, but CUs can be secular. No reason to reclassify — if you’re married you’re joined. There would be no change.
Dave,
You said, “Yes. Marriages are a kind of civil union, but CUs can be secular. No reason to reclassify — if you’re married you’re joined. There would be no change.”
Combining with your previous post, I believe your thinking is inspired. But, if I may, take it one step further. What if the word “marriage” was wiped totally off the law books, and substituted with “civil union”. As far as the government is concerned, marriage is a religious issue.
Believe it or not, in Mexico, if you want to get married, you must first go before a justice of the peace, to make it legal, then later the formal wedding is often held in a church.
The fundies can keep their “holy word,” unless some gay churches decide to perform weddings, but fortunately if it’s a religious ceremony, the government can’t touch it. It seems on the surface to be a perfect solution.
NeoWolfe
Show Me
Using the word civil union to denote all such LEGAL unions would not placate the religious right.
As Dave and Neowolfe also touched on, this wouldn’t be the terminology used in religious situations- they can still use the term marriage, they’d just have to get a civil union along with it.
If by all-capsing LEGAL you were implying that still wasn’t enough, well screw em’, there are only so many concessions we can make in good conscience. Godless was right, the movement has picked up speed, and hopefully the Miss Californias continue to weaken the religious right and pave the way for non-religious.
Show Me
Yes that is what I was implying. It was only a few years ago when the RR was trying to block gays from teaching in public schools. Calling gay teachers “learning potentiators” would not have helped one bit.
Concession is futile? They will be assimilated?
Naked photos of the good christian homophobe. Not very christian of her, eh?
Hypocrite.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13314898&ch=4226715&src=news
http://www.examiner.com/x-4107-Gay–Lesbian-Issues-Examiner~y2009m5d4-Topless-Carrie-Prejean-pics-surface-NOM-faces-dilemma
I’m willing to compromise with the religious groups as much as possible, but if they’re not willing to grant equality to a group, then compromising has become giving up.
“They will be assimilated?”
Preferably sooner than later, but the black community has not even been assimilated in many areas of this country.
ME and DC just legalised same sex marriages (DC will recognise those performed in other states). Now every New England state except RI has marriage equality and RI is expected to follow which will create a marriage equality zone in the Northeast.
Equality marches forward.
godless still wants a piece of a word,
Good luck with that. You might actually achieve it in fifty years. The electorate of California, the most liberal state on the map, just said “no”. You cannot have that word.
I cannot figure out why you want a piece of a word that denotes a religious institution. Why not go to court and eliminate that word from all legal language. But, instead, you insist on screwing yourselves on principle. Who carries which over the threashold? Rather ridiculous question right? Just like insisting to be call married.
You are just screwing yourselves. Let the fundies have their word, and their tradition. Make a new tradition, the world is your canvas to paint. You have all the support you need.
NeoWolfe
Same sex marriage, what’s next, those wanting to marry their pets to be legal too? I’m atheist, but not a heterophobe like most seem to be here. I agree with her, marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Ordinary
Can a pet consent to marriage? Can a pet consent to anything? No. So maybe you should stop pleasuring your poodle.
Oh darn, good point. But you must be in favor of farm animals, right? My point was, to me it all sounds just as unnatural to me, and nothing to do with religion.
And only today, I’ll pray for you
OA-
As unnatural as it sounds to you and I, it’s someone else’s choice to make, and unless you have some homosexual neighbors who enjoy breaking into your house and sodomizing on your bed while you’re gone, I can’t see how it hurts you.
The sanctity of marriage was destroyed when straight people started getting divorced 40+ % of the time, let it go.
Show Me, yes I totally agree. It’s their thing and I really don’t care, I just hate to see it go mainstream (guess I’m just old fashioned that way). Your point about divorce is very well taken, and a very sad statistic indeed. My parents are in there, but luckily I’m not. Believe it or not, I am very tolerant (have to be) and obviously my spouse is with me. My children have chosen their own paths too, and of the four of us no two the same in our beliefs. That’s OK and we all get along extremely well.
Maybe I’m just still trying to hold on to what I think marriage should be, and with stats like you quote and changing times, it is increasingly slipping away.
Take care –
ordinaryatheist said:
“I agree with her, marriage should only be between a man and a woman.”
Now can I rest my case? Send the jury to deliberate on whether or not an atheist is a freethinker? Amoebas who don’t believe in god.
NeoWolfe
neowolfe
“You are just screwing yourselves. Let the fundies have their word, and their tradition. Make a new tradition, the world is your canvas to paint. You have all the support you need.”
i could not agree with you more.
i (as an openly gay female) stand up and fight for our equality, but personally, i think the breeders should get to keep their “marriage” definition & everything that comes w it! i dont want to become part of a union in which the statistics have only grown more ugly and more negative.
let the gay’s have a union (with the same rights a “marriage licsene” gives a couple) and see what kind of statistics we create for ourselves.
and on a little rant of my own….
i am SHOCKED at how many “free thinkers” on here say that gays SHOULDNT have the right to marry or be in a union.
as an atheist and a lesbian i have had to defend and stad up for what i believe in (or the lack there of lol) for the better part of my 25 years.
how can someone who claims to be a free thinker ever be so close minded when it comes to a couple defining personal happiness?!
We really need some kind of remedial education program for new atheists. A lot of them grew up in toxic religious environments, and tho they have thrown off the specifically religious part of their cultural indoctrination, they’re still carrying a lot of social, political, and “moral” baggage.