Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage With Veto Override
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont on Tuesday became the fourth state to legalize gay marriage _ and the first to do so with a legislature’s vote.
The House recorded a dramatic 100-49 vote _ the minimum needed _ to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto. Its vote followed a much easier override vote in the Senate, which rebuffed the Republican governor with a vote of 23-5.
Well, given that this wasn’t accomplished by the “black-robed tyrants of the bench,” I wonder what the gay-haters will come up with to whine about now.
Probably some poll that shows .003 percent more Vermonters oppose gay marriage than support it, therefore, representative government need not apply, and this is being imposed by the elected tyrants of the legislature.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
Far more likely, I think, that somewhere, somehow, will be heard whingeing along the lines of “…tyranny of the majority!” -
Quite possibly from some of the same areas that are presently beavering away trying to do an end-run around the current Electoral College methodology used in Presidential elections?…
That seems unlikely — my impression is that the push against the Electoral College comes largely from the left. The net effect of such a change would be to shift electoral power away from low-population states and towards high-population states, which would largely mean from red states to blue states.
I don’t know about others, but my blogging history is clear on this point: if the citizens vote to redefine marriage, I’m all for it. Being a federalist makes me think that the states can do what the hell they want with regards to such things. So cool: Vermont used the legislative process to enact gay marriage. Good for them. This I’ve always supported.
Now I will state for the record that I think the phrase gay marriage is as meaningless as calling my cat a dog. I can do it, but it doesn’t make it so. What’s the desire result from gay marriage proponents? Inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights and health insurance rights for gay couples the same as for hetero couples? Again, I’ve been a clear supporter of such rights. What I object to is redefining language. Words mean things, and I don’t find those definitions to be infinitely elastic. If they are allowed to be so, then words lose their meaning. Considering how words are misused all the time these days (taxes = investment and such nonsense from pols), I think that this is a bug, not a feature.
Go ahead and label me a homophobe as you have pretty much do every opponent of gay marriage. I know that this is a hot button issue for you and have avoided the debate until now. But I reject your assertion that all opposition to gay marriage is due to some of us hatin’ them faggits.
In any event, if every state were to pass such laws, I’d be fine with it, regardless of the semantic issue it raises for me.
Good for them! I’ve said “I’m happier when it’s done legislatively”, and here it’s been done legislatively.
amazing this cyberrag is so biased…Gay marriages is an aximoron, and thode supporting such an abberation, simply morons. There will come the day that never came. Prostelisng fervently and parading thier degenrate behaviour and trying to pervert an already sick world. There is always a payback. I am not inherently anti gay, just fed up with their ranting and exhibitionism. You know something is wrong when it is no longer normal to be normal. Makes me puke Marriage is the sacred union of a man and woman, meant to consecrate the miracle of birth.
*sorry..oximoron
( typo sp)
Kyle -
Possibly you are right about the actual instigators of the push for the popular-vote end-run attempt on the Electoral College - however, I think that a lot of the supporters of this move don’t see the issues (and the consequences re: red-state vs. blue-state) as being as important to them as the central idea that is being put forward. Rather, I would expect that most who are in favor of this see it as an all-votes-should-be-counted issue, pure and simple. Regardless of where they live - or vote - they want their little drop in the elective bucket to mean exactly the same as everyone else’s.
Besides - at least at this point, I don’t think most of the hard-left are really all that concerned about red-state versus blue-state; they’ve got a full head of steam, from their viewpoint, with Mr. Hopey-Changefulness and the Demo-dominated Congress in charge. Also, they’ve got efforts by ACORN, et.al. to fall back on - if they can’t keep winning key elections any other way, I think they probably figure they’ll just steal what they want/need, like they’re in the process of doing with the Frankenfool in Minnesota.
I don’t have much faith in the ability of most of the electorate in any state - red or blue - to reason clearly where their best long-term interests lie. After all, time after time, the majority of U.S. voters appear to self-identify as “conservative” - yet the majority popular vote last November was for a guy who, by any clear reading, is a spendthrift liberal and a socialist, and a bigger liar than even Slick Willie Clintoon (but he’s very smooth, and oh-so-cool, man!).
What I was alluding to, in the end, is that many of the very same people who have problems with gay marriage, even when it’s legitimized by a majority of voters in a state (let alone by a state legislature), are the same sort of “thinkers” who have problems with election of the POTUS by any means other than the popular vote - and that they see no inconsistency between their views on those issues.
so many things wrong with that post…and so many spelling errors….
As far as marrage = miracle of birth…does that mean anyone who can not have or does not have children is unmarried in the eyes of the state??? Such rightwingnut rubbish…
Umm…Mr. Welch…
A) You’d be a lot more likely to be taken at least half-seriously if you expressed yourself somewhat less incoherently, using something resembling proper syntax and spelling (F’rinstance, it’s “oxymoron” - you blew it twice).
B) Your drive-by “opinion” of this “cyberrag” is noted - and will be (to the greatest extent possible) ignored.
Now, crawl back into your attic like a good lil’ fella, and stop drooling on Mommy’s keyboard…
Good to see Vermonters taking a sane stand on this. However you feel about this issue, one thing is for certain; societal mores are changing. The gay marriage genie is out of the bottle and dancing under a glittering disco ball. Ain’t no way, no how, anybody is gonna get that genie back in the bottle.
Slowly, but surely, the bigots are being chased into the shadows.
PG, I think you have a reasonable position. You support what I support in general terms. In your case, though, hiding behind the “definition” argument based on the meaning of language is superfluous. Language, like society is constantly evolving. Words from 20, 50, 100 years ago have changed in meaning as the contextual surface of society has changed. You’re trying to hold on to a conceptual definition that a rather large chunk of our society has decided to bypass as irrelevant. You may see the term “gay marriage” as an
aximoronoximoronoxymoron and an affront to how you define marriage. Well, within whose context does that definition operate?I would reply thusly:
1) I don’t see it as an affront. I see the phrase as nonsensical.
2) How I define marriage? I think more like how it has always been defined. To be fair, I’m including polygamous marriages here because they included a mix of both sexes, albeit heavily weighted one way, like some leaders having 50+ wives.
Of course language evolves. It allows us to grasp new concepts, or explain things heretofore undreamed of. However, when the “evolution” makes the language more opaque, that I have a problem with.
I’ll bring up a discussion that I had with someone about 10-12 years ago. The two words imply and infer are the two sides of the same coin, but they have distinct and separate definitions. Back in the mid-1990s, Websters -or somebody- threw up their hands and defined them as synonyms because people were too stupid to learn or know the difference. I found this to be a problem. When I said this to a co-worker, she said “Oh, language constantly evolves and this is a natural evolution.” It was not an natural evolution. Actual knowledge and information had been lost due to constant misuse of language.
More extreme ridiculous example. Here I will describe to you how to brew beer: Cat, cat cat cat, cat cat cat.
What do you mean, you didn’t understand that? The language evolved. I used the word cat to impart the knowledge of how to brew a good beer. You shouldn’t fight such an evolution. The fact that I’ve strained the word beyond recognition and stretched the definition beyond all meaningful boundaries so as to render the word meaningless isn’t relevant.
Coining new phrases and words, or finding new ways to describe things? That I call evolution. Making definitions infinitely elastic so as to render them meaningless? I’d call that devolution.
That said, I will agree with you that the definition IS changing, whether I want it to or not. And since people seem to be moving en masse towards the new definition, I’ll be fine with it, as I said.
Completely illogical. Language is a method of conveying information. If “cat cat cat cat cat cat” conveyed the information on how to make beer, it would be perfectly permissible to use those words to do so.
What you are protesting against is a shift in the concept of marriage itself. That has nothing to do with definitions per se. But such shifts have always occurred. At one time in human history, the concept of “marriage” as we understand it didn’t even exist. The applicable concept as we might understand it would have been “slavery,” or perhaps “ownership.”
Just what we need. Another group of victims whining for the state to give them stuff because of their living arrangements. I say get government out of the marriage business entirely. And out of the business of taking money and privileges from un”married” people at the point of a gun and giving them to “married” people. I’ve said it before: Marriage is a relationship betweeen an individual and the State. The relationship between a husband and wife is called “love”. Deciding whether that love is the same as that between two men or two women or between a dog and a fire hydrant is impossible and absurd. It is ridiculous to think such a decision can be made by legislation.
The changing of the language is only a side issue.
Here’s my problem with the substance of homosexual marriages (I refuse to use the word “gay”, because that still means, to me, “joyous and happy” rather than a bowdlerized description of aberrant behavior).
Social institutions which form a foundation for a settled and ordered society need to be protected. Marriage between a woman and a man, and the family which usually follows, has been proven to provide to society such benefits as stability, prudence, a view to safeguarding the future, and so on. This is why, by and large, society has rewarded marriage — it’s both an investment and a “thank you” to the people who have supported that social institution.
Let’s be perfectly honest, here: support for homosexual marriage is based upon one thing, and one thing only: money. (Yeah, I know, survivor benefits, power of attorney, blah blah blah all of which can be guaranteed by a simple living will and/or legal contract. Red herring.)
The plain fact of the matter is that homosexual marriage contributes nothing towards a stable society; it simply accommodates a tiny minority of the population (homosexuals, a subset, and homosexuals who want to get “married”, a subset of a subset). We run the danger of subverting the whole institution of marriage — because, at the end, what we’re saying is that all the reasons for society to support the institution are no longer important.
I’m sorry, Bill: I know this is a hot-button issue with you, but it’s equally one for me.
I am no homophobe; I am a conservative: one who dislikes to tinker with ancient, meritorious social institutions simply because it seems to be the decent thing to do.
Well, it isn’t. Watch how the support for homosexual marriage leads to other, less worthy changes.
Watch how, when a homosexual couple married in Vermont demands their “marital privileges” from a state like, oh, Missouri, and uses the Article IV (”full faith and credit”) as a foundation to force Missouri to accept Vermont’s marriage license. Call it a “Roe v. Wade” moment for homosexual marriage, and yet another encroachment of states’ rights by the federal government.
Bill, you’re always good at pointing out how you predicted X or Y a long time ago.
Mark this comment, to be quoted when the unintended consequences start to flow from this misguided subversion of one of society’s most ancient and treasured institutions.
AFDC and its bastard kin have already done it in.
Kim:
In order:
It is a fantasy on the part of those currently opposing gay marriage that marriage, per se, has always been mom and pop faithfully married to each other and producing and raising some number of children.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and in much of the world, it isn’t the truth even today. In America, until recently, naysayers, using exactly the same reasoning, predicted that allowing blacks and whites to marry would destroy “marriage.” Those people were idiots.
In large parts of the world today, “marriage” means the utter subjugation of women to their husbands - a cultural form of slavery in which women are considered less than human.
In part of the world today, “marriage” means a polygamous structure where one man controls/subjugates several women.
None of these versions of “marriage” has ever - ever - been threatened by any form of homosexual relationships. I defy you, Kim, to demonstrate any instance where any form of marriage was damaged or even affected by homosexual relationships of any kind.
As for the “stability” argument, the most stable societies tend to be theocratic tyrannies ordered by some God or other, in which both slavery and the subjugation of women are ordered by divine fiat. Islamic society has been more or less stable for 1300 years. Of course those societies have been stable barbaric shitholes for most of that time, but they have been stable.
Let’s be perfectly honest here - that’s a lie. Gay marriages are based on as many different things as straight marriages are - but the first one is love.
Gays and straights marry first for love. Some straight marriages go on to raise children. Many don’t. Some gay marriages also go on to raise children. But the number of gays and the number of straights who first marry based on financial concerns is minuscule. So the notion that gay marriages are based entirely on concerns about money is a lie.
Another lie. Gay marriages contribute - or could, if they were permitted - as much to society (I don’t worship at the “stable society” altar - I’m no Muslim) as straight marriages do. Any relationship involving mutual love and fidelity contributes to society in several ways - from STD control to the creation of stable homes, financial growth - in fact, all the good things unfairly credited to straight marriage alone.
Your weasel word here is “meritorious,” and the correct response is, “what is merit? Who decides?”
Slavery is an ancient social institution. The total subjugation of women is an ancient social institution. Some still consider both meritorious. Your preferences do not necessarily have any weight, especially when you are unable to demonstrate, on a historical basis, the supposed deleterious effects of homosexual relationships.
So what? This has nothing to do with the evils of gay marriage (which are fantasies of those who hate gay marriage, but have never been demonstrated in history). But even if this does happen, again, so what? Marriage in neither state is going to be damaged. The proximate historical analog is the free state-slave state problem, and that did damn near destroy the nation.
Now, for those whose minds are not already made up: The gay marriage opponents say that the only permissible form of marriage is between a man and a woman, perhaps raising a child they have conceived and given birth to.
Consider a gay man and a lesbian united in marriage, she artificially inseminated with semen from her husband, and the both of them raising the child she has given birth to.
This fulfills in every respect the ideal template, yet I suspect that most of today’s opponents to gay marriage would be revulsed by this marriage as well. Not because they hate gay marriage, but because they hate gays.
UPDATE: Kim, I’m not accusing you of homophobia. But almost all the opposition to gay marriage is rooted in homophobia.
I’ll take that bet, and I will try to remember to repost your comment annually, as a signpost to the disintegration of marriage caused by admitting gays to the institution doesn’t occur.
Oh, jeez: slavery and marriage, both ancient institutions and therefore worthy of upholding? I expected better from you than that facile conflation.
Okay, then: we’ll agree to disagree. (Especially the part about homosexual marriage being about love, first and foremost. I’m not going to swallow that Koolaid.)
I think you’re incorrect in thinking that homosexual marriage alone will destroy marriage as an institution. It will, sadly, be just one of many factors (like expanded welfare benefits for unwed mothers).
Just remember: when Roe v. Wade (homosexual marriage version) gets okayed by the Supreme Court (especially one which ahs been stocked with Obama nominations), let’s revisit this topic.
Translation: I choose not to attempt to answer your “facile conflation.”
Hey, you’re the one who brought up the “ancient institutions” bullshit. Don’t blame me for smacking it out of the park.
Of course not. How could disgusting fags possibly share the same human emotions you possess? Why, that might indicate they are human, and, well, that’s just drinking the Kool-Aid!
I don’t think it will have the slightest effect on marriage, let alone destroy it as an institution. (Okay, I know it’s a typo….)
You have yet to demonstrate that homosexual marriage will destroy anything, let alone marriage. And you’re moving over the line into the region of the babbling illogical. AFDC and the like pay people for not getting married. Gay marriage pays people for getting married. Rational people will be able to understand which is the threat, and which isn’t.
Oh, you mean the way Roe-v-Wade has destroyed the institution of childbearing?
I’ll be happy to revisit it. Although I’m uncertain that it will happen in the first place. But while we wait, chew on this:
U.S. Marriage and Divorce Rates - Chart - MSN Encarta
Note a couple of things: Marriage rates in the U.S. peaked in the 1940s, and dropped by 35% from there to the early 1960s. That’s the single biggest drop on record this century, and it was unaccompanied either by AFDC or by even the remote “threat” of gay marriage. In fact, homosexuality wasn’t even on the cultural radar. Even gay sex was criminalized everywhere in the U.S.
Then, during the so-called “sexual revolution” of the sixties and seventies, marriage rates surged, making up more than half of the previous drop.
This was the era when gays came out of the closet, and when gay rights decriminalized their relationships. People moaned that that would destroy the culture and threaten marriage, but it didn’t seem to.
I could make an equally good case that woman’s suffrage, the wartime emancipation of women, and the woman’s rights movement did more damage to “marriage as an institution” than any other factor, period - especially in the period of decline following the early eighties. So maybe there is something to your notion that historic traditions - like the subjugation of women - do protect the institution of marriage.
However, that’s not especially a culture I would be proud of, or would want to live in. But then, stability is not the highest standard by which I judge the greatness of a culture.