Most of the arguments I've heard in favor of the so-called marriage amendment rely heavily on religion--quotations from the Bible that "prove" homosexuality is a sin. That alone, it seems to me, is reason to vote against this badly-written intrusion into our private lives. Why is religion being written into the Constitution? Aside from that, most of the amendment's supporters probably haven't even read the language, which goes far beyond their state goals of preventing same-sex couples from marrying, and will with absolute certainty have consequences for unmarried heterosexual couples as well. Lawyers will probe the loose language of the amendment and will dig chinks into it until, eventually, the truth will come out.
And no one yet has explained to me how this action in anyway protects marriage. The biggest danger to marriage, indeed the only danger to marriage, is divorce, and conservative hypocrites aren't prepared to do anything about that. So what is the real objective in this absurd effort?
That's the funny thing. Because what the conservatives are really trying to do is "defeat" homosexuality, to drive it away. And of course that's not going to happen. Since Virginia law already prohibits gay marriage, the state isn't getting any more hostile (it's already as hostile as it can be), and there isn't anything that anyone can do to prevent homosexuals from entering into committed relationships with their partners, whether the law recognizes those partnerships or not.
So the joke is on the fascists who are pushing this thing, because it won't make a damn bit of difference.
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Thanks. But perhaps not appreciated is that the Marshall/Newman marriage amendment, if passed, will become legacy legislation which will prevent any near term move to equity for gay individuals now for perhaps a generation or more -- amendments are difficult to overturn -- especially one that is essentially the tyranny or a majority -- and gays will never be more than a small minority. It will take educating the public, and not just relying on the common sense and wisdom of elected politicians, to overturn this abominable amendment at some distant date.
The Republicans are using this measure hypocritically, as they have in 20 states, to energize evangelical voters to come to the polls where they will coincidentally vote for every Republican on the ballot.
This is contrary to Jeffersonian democracy and contrary to the emerging science and medicine -- and in the face of the encouraging trends in tolerance of younger and of more educated Virginians.
You're right, of course. What I meant by "won't make a damn bit of difference" is that gay couples will still exist, still live together, still enter into committed relationships, still be productive members of society, except that they will be denied rights that the rest of us have. That's a difference, all right, but not quite the one that the extremists had in mind.
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