Top Senator Backs Amendment Banning Gay Marriage

I heard this on the radio this morning. Sen. Frist said something about "the sacrament of marriage." Excuse me? Is he perhaps confusing personal religious ideas with what should be the law for all of us?

Of course he is. And that's the crux of the issue. Personally, I take a live-and-let-live approach. If gay folks want to marry, why not. But the concept clearly outrages others in the community...

I heard something on the radio, or I read in the paper, about the "Social Order" associated with marriage between male and female.

For fear of mincing words and not making clear how I feel about this little news nugget, I will say this: Frist can kiss my hairy ass.

But, hey, as long as he and his party continue in their mission to keep government out of our daily lives as much as possible, more power to him.

I was discussing this issue with a female friend this weekend, like me, heterosexual 50-ish, and unmarried. We agreed that there are certain advantages to marriage that are very down to earth. Health insurance coverage, inheritance issues, child custody issues. Straight folks who don't marry face some of the same disadvantages that gay couples do in certain respects.

Marriage, of course, is more than a legal and financial relationship, and that's where the rubber hits the road, I suspect, in objections to gay marriage...

Not as far as the government should be concerned. The moment they consider marriage as anything more than a legal or financial relationship, they've crossed a line in my book.

Well, I agree, patiodog. I meant in the sense of how marriage is viewed by the totality of society, i.e., there are those who definitely see marriage as somehow spiritual, and that's reflected, whether we like it or not, in how marriage is perceived.

But it raises the issue: Why does a couple have to be married to enjoy certain civil rights?

And THAT is the Bazillion $$ question!

Why should a spouse get special privilege in inheritance? Why can't someone just be designated in a will? Why can't I designate whomever I want as the benificary of any insurance policy I hold? Why can't I get whomever I want designated as "covered" under my health insurance plan? If you can pay $400/month to have yourself and a spouse insured why somone else have themselves and whomever they choose insured at the same rate?

I agree that that's the issue that is raised, and it's something I'll likely be facing in the next couple of years (as a straight guy who doesn't really put any stock in the institution of marriage, per se).

Thing is, though, as long as, say, health care benefits are extended to others, wills can be contested, hospital visitation limited, and whatnot, there needs to be some way to formally codify these relationships, and marriage appears to hvae some staying power, whatever its origins.

The theory behind that insurance question is that you can only be the beneficiary of a life insurance policy if you have something invested in the person staying alive. Therefore, traditionally. only relatives, business partners and spouses can be beneficiaries. Theory, it's theory, and i think it's gooooooooooofy. If you can prove your beneficiary wants you to stay alive, you can probably get that policy at the same rate. But it's a long haul putting together that proof.

Silly people.

As D'Artagnan said -- by declaring marriage to be a "sacrament", Frist crossed a line I'd prefer not to be crossed.

Patiodog may have been a bit inelegant with his suggestion for what Frist could do -- but if Frist takes PD up on his suggestion, he can certainly do the same for me.

(be it hairy or smooth)

The most amazing thing to me is that the U.S. Constitution has had only twenty seven amendments in all this time. It is quite difficult for me to believe that anyone would want to add a 28th amendment based on such frivolity.

You have a bit of a disconnect in your statements here patio -





"Whatever it's origns" blows off the fact that government adopted the religious principle of marriage and then attached a bunch of legal rights/entitlements to that. To then turn around and suggest that religion should stay out of it because it is a government/legal issue is a bit disingenuous.

There is a way to formally codify these relationships. The government should remove itself from religion in this case and eliminate the legal ties of benefits to marriage.

Yes, it's interesting how certain conservatives speak of their reverence for the Constitution but are ready to amend it any old time. Remember the anti-flag burning amendment?

Fertile weeds from the savage garden of the Sodomy Laws
============= SF GATE MORNING FIX =============
June 30, 2003 -- Mike Tyson is 37 today
By Mark Morford: [email protected]
http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/a/
"Lube up, lean into the fire, and laugh"
~~ nil desperandum ~~

== THE MEDIA SKEW ==
Fertile weeds from the savage garden of the SF Gate newswires

== Love Gets A Strap-On And A Smile ==
Nevada opponents of same-sex marriage said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas sodomy law will invigorate a national move for a constitutional ban against gay unions, mostly among exceptionally uptight fear-drunk white people who have desperately warped and straightjackeded ideas of what love truly means and who can't sleep at night without at least four Valium and a dozen deep sniffs of rubber cement and the soothing voice of Dr. Laura on looped tape. "I think
this will probably get the momentum going to a national constitutional
movement protecting marriage," whined a deeply terrified and twitchy
Richard Ziser, chairman of the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, one of those itchy screeching little groups that spearheaded the anti-gay marriage movement in Nevada. "What with Canada now approving the icky homo agenda and the even the weird Supreme Court allowing freaky gay people to stick things into each other, why, it's a slippery slope indeed until the world goes straight to hell and I just up and confess my utter adoration for ball gags and x-tra large strap-ons and latex masks and being spanked with a large paddle until I cry in bliss," he did not add, falling into a trembly reverie. "Holy crap, did I just say that out loud?"
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2003/06/27/state1559EDT0086.DTL&nl=fix

== Happy Happy Sodomy And The End Of Strom ==
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a central figure in the political
transformation of the South and the longest serving senator in American
history and long-noted hunk of sanctimonious fiery intolerant shoe
leather who helped shape the modern GOP into the adorable vicious and
lopsided and utterly heartless machine of soulless bitterness it is
today, and also the guy who inadvertently helped force Trent Lott from
power, bless his shriveled soul, died Thursday night. He was 100. The Gods of Fate and Time were gratified by the ultimate result of Strom's life, noting with pleasure that the famed segregationist and misogynist and homophobe lived just long enough to see Canada OK gay marriage and the US Supreme Court give a huge thumbs-up to homosexual *and*
heterosexual sodomy across all states, with the added bonus that the case that brought the sodomy issue to the Court in the first place was centered around an interracial gay couple. It is believed by some of the more open-hearted in this culture and in this newsletter that it is this very realization, this very turn of love energies despite Strom's decades and decades of fighting and resisting and sneering at almost all humanitarian progress, that finally killed him.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/27/MN272836.DTL&nl=fix

Yes, I am aware that it is. It just seems a far sight more practical to me, at this point, to extend what the state will recognize as a marriage rather than address all the individual points where having a union not be recognized is an impediment.

I find Frist's premise absurdly narrow and simplistic, and so I respond in kind. (Thankfully, I don't have to get up before a court or a legislature or a nation and defend my absurdly narrow and simplistic response.)

William Safire, for a former Agnew speech writer, can be reasonable at times, as long as his topic isn't Israel and Palestine. He was thoughtful today, IMHO, in his analysis of this issue:

http://nytimes.com/2003/06/30/opinion/30SAFI.html

Frist also said something about supporting criminality - criminality!

Agree with Letty.