[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20061117" target="_blank">Legacy of Equality</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> November 17, 2006

South Africa\'s parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage this week, making the country the second former dictatorship to do so. <br> <br>It\'s rather ironic that in one of the biggest civil rights battles of the new millenium the United States has taken such a decidedly regressive stance. Even Nancy Pelosi doesn\'t want to talk about it.

[andrewcool]

Hmm the land where men are all created equal..

They should change that to where all Men and Woman are all created equal.

[Canadaka]

It is rather ironic, and its not only the case with just Same-sex marriage. Not sure the slogan "Land of the Free" is too accurate anymore, many other nations have surpassed the level of freedom and often appears that the US is going backwards.

[JJ]

Well I don't know if I would go that far. It's worth remembering that the modern same-sex marriage movement was started in the United States, as well as most other intellectual / social movements relating to gay rights. I think that's part of what makes the current situation so tragic; viewing all the trends and facts in a vacuum one would have expected America to have progressed a lot father on this issue than it has.

If you spoke to a person in the 70's and said "in 30 years two of these three nations will allow gays to marry" I am sure people would find the results quite shocking. I view the matter more as a tragedy of America not completing its own social journey, rather than the country simply being oppressive or unfree or whatever.

[Kjorteo]

Well, it's certainly a tragedy either way, since I'm kind of trapped in a regressive country with less civil rights than I'd ideally like to have.

[Psudo]

Canadaka wrote:

It is rather ironic, and its not only the case with just Same-sex marriage. Not sure the slogan "Land of the Free" is too accurate anymore, many other nations have surpassed the level of freedom and often appears that the US is going backwards.

"Many" have surpassed the U.S.? Of the 190+ nations in the world, how many do you believe have surpassed the U.S.? Only 14 are even in the same perfect-score category of freedom as the USA, according to this
previous post.

Further, is "freedom" a direction in which civilization continually travels, or is it a point to which you reach and hold fast? If two travelers reach that point and one stops and one continues, which is most free? The philosophical debate over social restriction vs. allowances continues, and absolute moral allowance is not equal to freedom. It's premature to equate gay marriage with freedom.

[XianLewis]

Let me say first that I truly enjoy filibustercartoons.com and that I usually find your pithy editorial cartoons quite refreshing.

However, I believe today's is a bit misguided. "All men are created equal" is the reality in the United States, even in marriage. All persons have the opportunity to get married, to a person of the opposite sex. There is no distinction of of class, gender, position, race, or religion in this regard.

To permit marriage between people of the same sex is not extending the same right to all persons, but instead extending a special right to a few. Homosexual people, despite all the debate, still maintain the tools for procreative, heterosexual sex. It is not like they are distinctly separate from heterosexuals, as evinced by the fact that some self-proclaimed homosexuals often revert back to heterosexuality and/or heterosexual (perhaps during bisexual) sex. "Sexual orientation" is strictly a matter of preference, psychologically or naturally - whichever explanation you choose.

This cartoon is provocative and misleading in this regard: Americans can be homosexual and be protected and accepted by society. It is not like other nations where they are killed immediately. There is not severe ostracism in the American schools, the culture circles, etc. While ostracism does exist (everywhere) for unusual lifestyles (between 1 and 7%, depending on your source), the homosexual lifestyle is publicly promoted in American grade schools and universities.

On the other hand, homosexuality is not treated like a special club in the United States. Marriage is a religious ceremony, meant to promote procreation and subsequent child-raising. It is a joining of penis and vagina, yen and yang. It is both natural and obvious - a convention that has been made less meaningful by the many abortive and botched attempts at it, but still natural and still obvious. The inability of heterosexuals to use it correctly is not an argument in favor of trivializing it.

As the member of a family of attorneys (father, stepfather, two grandfathers, uncles, etc) I can tell you that the marital "benefit" for tax reasons is not only "overstated," but a complete farce in the United States. There are several marriage penalties not being mentioned. Also, it's a complete lie to say that possessions cannot be transferred between lovers in case of one's death, as any basic contract or will can easily serve just as well. Finally, there is a very simple fact that has been ignored: this constitutional loophole that is supposed to be created will infringe upon the rights of the other 93-99% of the population. If there are any benefits of gay marriage, shouldn't the contract between same-sex persons be available to all, like hetero marriage currently is? If this is the case, have we created a new type of business partnership? Can I claim my business partner and I are gay and bypass all the statutes on creating a small business?

Ad ridiculum. The problem is far more complex than our Canadian counterparts seem to view it. By your own admission, you hardly understand your own government - a fact which probably makes gay marriage easier, since convention reigns over law. But in the US, where there are more attorneys than in the rest of the world combined, these are very serious questions. Also, where do we draw the line? Why is homosexual marriage permitted and bigamy or polygamy banned? While many nations in the world allow 13 year olds to marry 46 year olds, why are we labeling similar pairings in our nation as child molestation (See Warren Jeffs). I'm not advocating these things, I'm just saying that the line is a very gray one, and the only thing that currently demarcates it is our prejudice against such things.

[Kjorteo]

I don't know who you've been speaking to, but I certainly never advocated having even more rights and privileges than the rest of society.

Quote:

However, I believe today's is a bit misguided. "All men are created equal" is the reality in the United States, even in marriage. All persons have the opportunity to get married, to a person of the opposite sex. There is no distinction of of class, gender, position, race, or religion in this regard.

That's...that's wonderful. It really warms my heart that a gay person can participate in a heterosexual marriage just because he or she can. I'm sure they will be the happiest couple ever.

Quote:

To permit marriage between people of the same sex is not extending the same right to all persons, but instead extending a special right to a few. Homosexual people, despite all the debate, still maintain the tools for procreative, heterosexual sex.

Wait, am I reading this correctly? I'm reading this to imply that you think homosexuals have unfair extra rights, because they can still participate in heterosexual relationships as well as homosexual ones. Well...uh...so can you. Ever since Lawrence v. Texas, straight people have been totally allowed to commit sodomy. They can also enter into civil unions in any state that allows that sort of thing in the first place, which is...uh...one of them. So celebrate your freedom to be gay today! ...Wait, what's that? That's not really your thing? Well, welcome to the problem with the logic that gay people can have straight marriages.

Quote:

On the other hand, homosexuality is not treated like a special club in the United States. Marriage is a religious ceremony, meant to promote procreation and subsequent child-raising. It is a joining of penis and vagina, yen and yang.

This is why efforts have been made to separate the marriage ceremony and the legal status, through things like civil unions. And Colorado, the only state that even had civil unions on the ballot last election, voted them down strongly. Gosh, I can't tell you how priviliged that makes me feel. I'll be sure to rub my inability to get any form of legal recognition in all the straight people's faces. Ha, you have rights that I don't, nyah nyah. Oh, wait....

Quote:

As the member of a family of attorneys (father, stepfather, two grandfathers, uncles, etc) I can tell you that the marital "benefit" for tax reasons is not only "overstated," but a complete farce in the United States. There are several marriage penalties not being mentioned.

Quote:

Finally, there is a very simple fact that has been ignored: this constitutional loophole that is supposed to be created will infringe upon the rights of the other 93-99% of the population. If there are any benefits of gay marriage, shouldn't these benefits be available to straight, single persons?

So, wait. The benefits of legal recognition are a myth, but it's totally not fair that gay people get to have them? I don't think I quite follow your logic. Arguing that single people should have benefits is kind of a separate issue. Personally, I'd be for it, but that's really beside the point. Saying that heterosexual relationships have benefits that homosexual relationships do not is discrimination, plan and simple. If anything, wouldn't that make heterosexuality the "special club" of which you speak? Sure, homosexuals are a distinct minority according to any figure you can find, but the very reason we have the Constitution we do is to specifically protect the freedoms of individuals and small groups from the majority opinion. If that wasn't true, we'd have turned into a Christian Theocracy long ago.

[USCAdad]

XianLewis wrote:

Let me say first that I truly enjoy filibustercartoons.com and that I usually find your pithy editorial cartoons quite refreshing.

[quote=Xian]However, I believe today's is a bit misguided. "All men are created equal" is the reality in the United States, even in marriage. All persons have the opportunity to get married, to a person of the opposite sex. There is no distinction of of class, gender, position, race, or religion in this regard.

Well there is an advantage for people that have the narrow religious social perameters that fit the law. One man one woman? What if your religion does not support this or distinguish. You admit that marriage is a religious institution. As it's currently constructed it doesn't allow for freedom of religion to Muslims, Extremist Mormons, Pagans, or Secular Humanists (if you want to label secularism as a religion). How is this equal?

Quote:

To permit marriage between people of the same sex is not extending the same right to all persons, but instead extending a special right to a few. Homosexual people, despite all the debate, still maintain the tools for procreative, heterosexual sex. It is not like they are distinctly separate from heterosexuals, as evinced by the fact that some self-proclaimed homosexuals often revert back to heterosexuality and/or heterosexual (perhaps during bisexual) sex. "Sexual orientation" is strictly a matter of preference, psychologically or naturally - whichever explanation you choose.

Wow! What reasoning. You must be a bang up lawyer. So, it would be fine if freedom of religion meant freedom to be a Southern Baptist (Muslim... pick your poison). Everyone would have the oportunity to go to Bob Jones and all would be fair? I mean Catholics can and sometime do go to churches of different denomination... it really is just choice after all.

Quote:

This cartoon is provocative and misleading in this regard: Americans can be homosexual and be protected and accepted by society. It is not like other nations where they are killed immediately. There is not severe ostracism in the American schools, the culture circles, etc. While ostracism does exist (everywhere) for unusual lifestyles (between 1 and 7%, depending on your source), the homosexual lifestyle is publicly promoted in American grade schools and universities.

Well heck, we may as well get rid of most of our civil rights... they would only be infringed upon occasionally and only against a small group of people.... sort of waste really don't you think. Just think how streamlined society could be if there weren't as many namby courts out there.

Quote:

On the other hand, homosexuality is not treated like a special club in the United States. Marriage is a religious ceremony, meant to promote procreation and subsequent child-raising. It is a joining of penis and vagina, yen and yang. It is both natural and obvious - a convention that has been made less meaningful by the many abortive and botched attempts at it, but still natural and still obvious. The inability of heterosexuals to use it correctly is not an argument in favor of trivializing it.

I can buy that marriage is a sacred religious ceremony. Fine, get it out of the government and back in the Church where it belongs. The government should not be in the business of funding religious dogma. It should provide civil unions for anyone who wants one. A marriage stamp should be available from your local Pastor.

Quote:

As the member of a family of attorneys (father, stepfather, two grandfathers, uncles, etc) I can tell you that the marital "benefit" for tax reasons is not only "overstated," but a complete farce in the United States. There are several marriage penalties not being mentioned. Also, it's a complete lie to say that possessions cannot be transferred between lovers in case of one's death, as any basic contract or will can easily serve just as well. Finally, there is a very simple fact that has been ignored: this constitutional loophole that is supposed to be created will infringe upon the rights of the other 93-99% of the population. If there are any benefits of gay marriage, shouldn't the contract between same-sex persons be available to all, like hetero marriage currently is? If this is the case, have we created a new type of business partnership? Can I claim my business partner and I are gay and bypass all the statutes on creating a small business?

So, does coming from such a long line of lawyers cause you to dream of ambulences at night?

Absolutely, people should have the right to form whatever family structures they want. If it's better to have a family of five adults so what? You just have a different preference and want government to subsidize and enforce your beliefs.

Quote:

Ad ridiculum. The problem is far more complex than our Canadian counterparts seem to view it. By your own admission, you hardly understand your own government - a fact which probably makes gay marriage easier, since convention reigns over law. But in the US, where there are more attorneys than in the rest of the world combined, these are very serious questions. Also, where do we draw the line? Why is homosexual marriage permitted and bigamy or polygamy banned? While many nations in the world allow 13 year olds to marry 46 year olds, why are we labeling similar pairings in our nation as child molestation (See Warren Jeffs). I'm not advocating these things, I'm just saying that the line is a very gray one, and the only thing that currently demarcates it is our prejudice against such things.

Exactly how old do you have to be to get married in West Virginia? Polygamy and child abuse are two seperate issues. One is always wrong, the other is a valid family structure that has been used in different places at different times.

[Kjorteo]

USCAdad wrote:

I can buy that marriage is a sacred religious ceremony. Fine, get it out of the government and back in the Church where it belongs. The government should not be in the business of funding religious dogma. It should provide civil unions for anyone who wants one. A marriage stamp should be available from your local Pastor.

I cannot possibly agree more entusiastically with this sentiment. Civil unions are meant as an alternative to the Christian ceremony, which is fine by me. Church and State are supposed to be separated anyway. Ideally, a gay couple would be able to file for a marriage license, or a civil union, or whatever you want to call it. If they happen to feel like it, they would also be able to partake in a ritual of whatever religion would endorse it, just for the fun of it, mostly just to say they did if they happen to be believers.

In fact, I would take that ideal a step further and argue that that's how it should be for everyone. Why do Baptist/Catholic/etc. weddings automatically count as legally valid marriages? That's where all this marriage/union confusion is coming from in the first place. It's also unconstitutional: as long as a gay pagan joining ritual (or whatever you want to have) does not carry as much automatic legal weight as an official Baptist wedding, then letting anyone have ritual and recognition bundled together violates the Establishment clause.

[Rhoffman]

I have to agree with the previous two posters in their points against XianLewis. Homosexuals aren't gaining a one up on straights by being allowed to marry other gay people, they're finally receiving the same right to marry and have the same legal protections that straights have always had.

Further, you have to remember that no gay marriage law would force any religious institution to perform such a marriage should they desire not to for any reason. It's not going to infringe upon religious freedom in the least bit.

[ThePenguin]

I don't understand why same-sex marriage is such a big issue. America (as far as I know) prides itself on the separation of Church and State. The only reason why people are hesistant in doing anything about it is because of an old Leviticus quote that prohibits sodomy.

Leviticus (if anyone has bothered to read it) is filled with dietary laws, strict cleansing laws, slave treatment, spousal treatment and various other laws that aren't in effect anymore-- at least with the people that matter, the mainstream Christians. If they are banning the marriage based on this, I say they better start implementing any and every law stated in that book. But 'no', they would say. 'That would be ridiculous, this book is thousands of years old, we have to keep up with the times!'

And that's exactly why any anti-same-sex marriage's point is invalid. We're not forcing this upon anybody's religion, this is purely within the walls of civil law.

And finally:

XianLewis wrote:

If there are any benefits of gay marriage, shouldn't the contract between same-sex persons be available to all, like hetero marriage currently is? If this is the case, have we created a new type of business partnership? Can I claim my business partner and I are gay and bypass all the statutes on creating a small business?

Are you honestly under the impression that straight couples have not don e that yet? Do you have any hold on the exact number of immigrants who marry American citizens so they are able to get their own green card?

Please, open your eyes. We're all humans: all equally capable to try and take advantage of any law that grants privelege to certain people in certain circumstances ... regardless of our sexual orientation.

[Kjorteo]

America says it prides itself on the separation of Church and State, but their record for backing this up is sorely lacking. The Religious Right is such a huge voting bloc that any party or candidate to the left of Fred Phelps has to make concessions and "appeal" to them if they hope to be elected. That's why no President since the founding fathers themselves* has been anything other than Christian. Only one (John F. Kennedy) was even Catholic instead of Baptist, and even that caused a minor uproar. With only one exception, every President since 1976 has been from the South (where the Bible Belt is at its strongest.) The one not from the South was Ronald Reagan, who was so staunchly conservative that he may as well have been.

That "Congress shall make no law" is written plainly in the Constitution itself is all the people seeking freedom from religion have left. The common procedure seems to be that the Legislative branch comes up with a wildly Theocratic idea, and the courts strike it down for being unconstitutional. The courts themselves are now under fire for this, with "activist judges" becoming the new buzzword conservatives love to throw around. That conservatives held every branch of the Government in charge of appointing Supreme Court Justices (George W. Bush being the President to nominate them, and the Senate in charge of approving them being under Republican control) has led to even the Supreme Court being questionable in this regard.

In short, I agree with JJ's assessment that the United States' stances on homosexuality and religion are pretty regressive.

* Edit: Okay, after doing some research, I will concede that Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes at least did not have an official denomination listed. I will admit that I do not know which, if any, of these men were actually atheist or otherwise not religious, and which were simply generic non-denominational Christian.

[grainfedprairieboy]

XianLewis

Good post and welcome to CKA.

[XianLewis]

First of all, thanks to grainfed for the welcome.

Second of all, I think it is sufficient to point out that the United States doesn't "Pride itself on separation of Church and State." Truthfully, the "Separation," described by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a church, has no constitutional foundation. It was simply mentioned in a letter- in DEFENSE of a faith-based issue - and then applied by Supreme Court Justices hundreds of years later in a vague way. Thanks to journalism, the rest of the world and 99% of Americans are sure it's written in the US Constitution, somewhere.

Thirdly, beyond the jeers and personal denigrations inveighed by the persons on this board attempting to convince everyone that I was the closed-minded bigot, there was a fairly incomprehensible bit of nonsense about homosexual marriage being the obvious reparation to a current state of inequality. Someone else pointed out that one particular court ruled that sodomy was illegal between homosexuals, but legal for heterosexuals. The former is one of those bridges people use where they have something so engrained in their minds that they cannot, for the life of them, step back and see the forest for the trees. The latter author used a single legal case (as well as a single verse from the Bible later) out of context. Sodomy laws in the US are almost universally obselete "blue" laws, and the penalties against sodomy are almost invariably enforced as add-ons to charges against rapists. Furthermore, a single case in Texas often has little to no bearing on the laws of other states, especially Louisiana. I would also remind everyone here that it is likely that case was and still is being appealed by someone, somewhere. This is America, after all.

Finally, I think it is fabulous that two people joined together to congratulate each other and post numerous and vociferous posts in response to my one. There is a common trend in academia for a single person in a discipline to posit an idea, only to have it torn apart by the other persons in that field who build reputations on their criticisms without positing a single, logical idea themselves. I am glad that Murphy's Law and that trend both continue to find enthusiasts in the modern world.