I think I'll handle this in the same manner I handled the article that got me fired. I'll simply go line by lie...sorry, line, and counter his statements with what I hope resemble well reasoned responses. You know, I'll use facts to parry deceits. I suppose it will be necessary to let you know when I'm speaking, I'll use brackets and italics, keep an eye open. I'll also try to minimize the use of image macros, unless it's really funny or important. Now that I've backed my readers into a TL;DR situation I'll begin.
Michale Medved
GAY MARRIAGE Myths and Truths
The decision by federal judge Vaughan Walker to invalidate California’s Proposition 8 both recycles and revives some of the tired, misleading clichés regarding the same sex marriage controversy. These distortions demand direct, concise correction and rebuttal.
(I'll start really early by pointing out that the above statement is kind of crass. I mean of course we're going to have to debate the issue some more, especially with the same arguments we used before, because largely those arguments were correct, it was Medved's side where the arguments were completely crazy. For example the argument that by enacting Prop 8 we have saved school children from getting gayed up by being taught about gay marriages. You know, that part of the marriage equality act that doesn't exist, also, I would like to remind everyone that having not entirely that long ago graduated from a public school system I do not recall taking the "Same Sex Marriage" class, the one that teaches students all about marriage. Or how about the way all of the pro arguments are couched in defenses of marriage and its sanctity, which automatically defines them as religious arguments, which on principle should undermine the argument to begin with because it means that no marriage should be recognized by the state to prevent the state from sullying its hands with religion.)
1. “Proposition 8 was a mean-spirited ban on gay marriage.”
TRUTH: Proposition 8 banned nothing.
(except the ability of same sex couples to marry in the eyes of the state...you know...the entity that recognizes the coupling allowing them to have the following...
Tax Benefits
- Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
- Creating a "family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.
Estate Planning Benefits
- Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
- Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
- Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIPs, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
- Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.
Government Benefits
- Receiving social security, medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
- Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
- Receiving public assistance benefits.
Employment Benefits
- Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
- Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
- Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
- Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.
Medical Benefits
- Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
- Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.
Death Benefits
- Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
- Making burial or other final arrangements.
Family Benefits
- Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
- Applying for joint foster rights rights.
- Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
- Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.
Housing Benefits
- Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only."
- Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.
Consumer Benefits
- Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
- Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
- Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.
Other Legal Benefits and Protections
- Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium(loss of intimacy).
- Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
- Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can't force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
- Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
- Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
- Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
The ubiquitous headlines describing this voter-mandated change in the California constitution as a “gay marriage ban” amount to the worst example of journalistic malpractice in recent years. The entire proposition consisted of only fourteen words: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This simple statement imposes no restrictions and issues no commands regarding the behavior of private citizens: it merely demands a change in the actions of government. (So precisely how does saying that not simultaneously mean that gay marriage is banned? Is it like this...
Marriage is only valid if between A and B. What about Marriage between A and A? That is not valid, only A and B. So can A and A get married, can they have the same privileges as A and B? No, that is not valid. Isn't that then a ban and limitation of rights? No, because it is not. Why? Because.) Proposition 8 did nothing to interfere with gay couples in registering for state-recognized civil unions, participating in church or civil ceremonies consecrating their love, forming life-time commitments, raising children, or concluding comprehensive contractual arrangements to share all aspects of life and property. (Sticky wicket that. You see a civil union and a marriage are two entirely separate things. A civil union is not recognized outside the borders of the state it's in and doesn't guarantee all the rights offered by marriage. By suggesting that homosexuals have the right to civil unions but not marriage is to say that these two concepts are separate but equal, which is not true. The two ideas, Marriage and Civil Unions are separate but unequal, and thus unfair and runs counter to the U.S. constitution) The proposition simply says that government will not get involved in any of these private or public processes by calling such relationships a marriage.
2. “Proposition 8 singled out gays and lesbians for discriminatory treatment.”
TRUTH: The proposition never mentioned gays, lesbians or any other individuals, whatever their sexual orientation. (Well, I guess you got me there, it didn't say any of that...but I did notice that it blocks out a swathe of people...a rather substantial swathe of people, what like 10% of the population? That's cool right, by not using their name or title it's not like you're preventing them from doing something? Right?) It didn’t discriminate among individuals; it drew distinctions among relationships. Under the proposition, a gay male and a straight male would face exactly the same options in marriage—free to choose any woman who is not already married or a blood relative. The fact that the gay man won’t want to marry any of the women available to him doesn’t change the fact that he and his straight neighbor face precisely the same opportunities and restrictions in their marital choices. (I really am flummoxed by the previous statement, I mean it reads like something a crazy person would write. So, marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and all rights and privileges are reserved for those people I.E. straight people. A gay man has the right to marry a woman, and experience all the rights and privileges of marriage...the bond of deep love and commitment that it means. Oh wait! That's right, marriage isn't just the rights and contractual crap it's also the symbolic union of two people who love and care for each other, so by limiting the definition of marriage to a man and woman's union you aren't totally obstructing the ability of gays to have same union to honor their love. Seriously, you are effectively invalidating the concept of love in a marriage, it is a cold contract between two people, so why don't I marry one of your relatives Michael? I'll marry her right the hell up, because I love social contracts, what's that? No I don't love them, I'm just exercising my right to marry lovelessly. The main problem is that many of these pundits and the followers of this law and line of thinking do not regard homosexuals as being any different than straight people. A gay person simply feels compelled to make their life infinitely more difficult for themselves, it's not as though science has shown that a heterosexual person and a homosexual person are fundamentally different in their biology and brain activity. Nah, they are just really dedicated to going against the grain.)
3. ”Failure to sanction gay marriage is based on the assumption that “same sex couples simply are not as good as opposite sex couples.” (This language appears verbatim in the judge’s decision).
TRUTH: Opposition to government sanction of gay marriages isn’t based on the notion that opposite sex couples are “better,” but on the idea that they are more consequential, and serve an important social purpose more effectively. Laws in every state recognize the desirability that children should be raised by their biological parents, wherever possible. (So foster parents are completely inferior, why not make adoption illegal if biological parents are the standard by which all children should be raised, hell if the biological parents are deficient in their parenting kill the child. It will be better off dead than in an inferior home setting with two other straight people.) This is based on the universal, common sense assumption that a child generally will fare best if it is raised by both its birth mother and birth father. (Single parents should also be banned...and shot...for failing to be better at marriage, don't look at me like that, marriage is the cornerstone of civilization, not grain or animal husbandry.)
4. “Recognizing gay marriage would do nothing to harm existing opposite sex marriages.”
TRUTH: The problem with government endorsement of same sex marriage isn’t damage it would do to current heterosexual couples, but the profound change it would bring to the institution of marriage itself. In every civilization known to historians and anthropologists, marriage involves the union of man and woman—and the recognition that combining the two genders produces a durable unit that is very different from any all-male or all-female combination. The argument for gay marriage depends on the discredited and destructive idea that men and women are identical—that your marriage will be the same whether you select a male or female partner. Gay marriage also separates the institution of marriage from the process of childbearing, at a time when we need to reaffirm that children fare best within a marriage, and marriage becomes more significant when it produces children.(Soooooo...I don't quite follow. The above argument is valid, it wouldn't harm same sex unions, it would not produce offspring of those unions and would not prevent his preferred union from occurring. All your doing is again suggesting that marriage is exclusively to create children, which it is not and that is not the contract that people go into for marriage in the U.S., Michael, seriously, you aren't countering the statement, you are only telling me that in ancient civilizations people would marry and have kids. In ancient civilizations I would also kill black cats because they were witches and scream at eclipses because a giant snake was eating the moon. You know why these things don't really happen so much anymore, it's called science and advances in civilization, clinging to old world ideals wont make science go away...it wont bring back your dead father Michael, let him go, he would have wanted it this way! Let science heal you...with gayness.)
5. “Denying marriage rights to same sex couples is the equivalent of denying marriage rights to inter-racial couples before 1967.”
TRUTH: The old and hateful laws barring interracial marriage directly discriminated against individuals based on their race—a discrimination explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. The language of the Constitution never mentions (or even hints at) similar protection for sexual orientation. (In the same way it doesn't explicitly say we can't have slaves, because back then blacks weren't people. You know it's kind of funny it's almost as though modern society is accepting that there is this whole other 'race' of people...homosexual people. But this 'race' of people shouldn't be accepted, because they will rub off on us, then we'll all be gay and God will hate us, because that's how God rolls...arbitrarily and without accounting for biological precedents uncontrollable by the individual. Let me just say that this sadly forces me to say that homosexuality is kind of proof that the old testament view of God is invalid, or rather that that God can't exist and be considered just. I mean why would God give people free will, and then have these people be genetically incapable of feeling differently than they do, thus damning them for eternity for being born differently. So either God is wrong, or the book is wrong, and if the book is wrong what is your moral code based on?) Before Loving v. Virginia struck down the evil anti-miscegenation laws, such legislation treated a black man and a white man completely differently: the African-American couldn’t marry a white woman, but the white guy could. As noted above, under Proposition 8 a lesbian woman got exactly the same marriage options as a heterosexual woman; there was no potential mate that the straight woman could choose, but the gay woman couldn’t.( This shit again? Jesus.)
6. “Any gay marriage ban is an invasion of privacy.”
TRUTH: Actually, opposition to gay marriage involves the defense of privacy from governmental intrusion, not any sort of intimate assault. The drive to mandate gay marriage demands a vast expansion of governmental involvement into same sex relationships – relationships in which the right bureaucratic policy would be strict neutrality. Proposition 8 mandated no change in private relationships and only an alteration in public policy.(This section is kind of a moot point and really ties back into the whole 'gays aren't afforded the same rights as everyone else.)
7. “Governmental recognition for gay marriage is necessary to end oppression of gay people.”
TRUTH: All Studies and surveys indicate that gay people in America hardly constitute an oppressed minority; on average, they enjoy higher levels of education and income than the heterosexual majority. (But they are blocked from a fundamental privilege all other U.S. citizens enjoy. Also the points you are making don't really reflect the reality of the situation, so a slightly higher percentage of gays are better educated? So? What about the social stigma and hate crimes perpetrated against them? Michael, being a straight man have you ever had a group of people call you a 'not fag' and push you to the ground? Can your sexual orientation be used as a slur? I didn't think so Michael, but you're right, gays totally rule us and we need to hold onto marriage to stave off the gayification of all we hold dear.) Even in the federal trial just concluded, the plaintiffs’ attorneys presented abundant evidence of the remarkable success and eminence of homosexual couples in the United States. (Wait, so they work well together and are successful... but before you were saying they were inferior to hetero couplings? Make up your mind! Are they bad for children and society or are they successful and competent?) The undeniable fact that gay people have achieved these personal and communal victories even without gay marriage, is an indication that the traditionally privileged position for heterosexual marriage hasn’t blocked homosexuals from successful participation in every aspect of American life.(So blacks were capable of learning to read and write as well as a number of them becoming notable in their time and respected by large portions of the nation, whilst simultaneously being barred from voting and going to white schools? Why don't we just ditch those laws giving them rights, women and people who don't own land too, because all of these groups have been successful without overtly using these rights afforded them. It will unclutter our law books if we cut back on peoples rights.)
With Judge Walker’s decision, the debate about re-defining marriage will once again intensify as the case works its way through the system to the Supreme Court of the United States. No effort at logical argument can halt the hysterical distortions that erupt periodically on both sides but the integrity of public discourse requires at least an honest attempt to clear away mistakes, irrational claims and outright smears. (which is exactly why I need to remind you to shut up, because you aren't helping the discourse by obfuscating facts with excuses for bad behavior.)
So that's it, that is Mr. Medved's argument in favor of blocking gays from marrying...stuff...stuff that doesn't make sense nor really applies to the argument at hand. Thank you Medved, for unclearing everything up, and thank you human sexuality teacher for just not getting it either.
Also, for good measure...this is a Nicolas Rage moment...
