"...male and female and God."
Isn't that polygamy?
Add in female slaves, female booty captured in battle, and your cousin, and you're getting close to being biblical.
Yes, this is all backward and worthy of mocking, but note this. Just a few days ago More Light Presbyterians reported in A Sea Change In Support for Marriage Equality that according to the Pew Research Center, in 2004, 31% of the U.S. population supported marriage equality and 60% were opposed. Today 47% are in favor and 43% oppose. Even the president knows the numbers.
North Carolina is a few years behind the times, that's all. It took all of the religious bluster they could muster, including dragging out poor old Billy Graham to blather nonsense for them to get to the position where the whole nation was eight years ago.
I am not saying jump up and cheer. This was a bad day for equality. This amendment wasn't even necessary to prevent gays from marrying. It was pure meanness. Yet in perspective, and we should keep perspective, marriage equality will become reality, even in North Carolina.
There is one ... well, not bright exactly ... side to this vote. The only way the radical right won was by lying. Poll after poll demonstrated that they would have lost had people actually known what their vote actually meant.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when the radical right didn't have to lie to get their agenda enacted; now they do. That is, in some way, progress. Eventually their lies will no longer work. Judges in other states have already rejected other similarly confusing wordings.
BTW the last time NC voted on marriage? It was to ban interracial marriage. So they don't exactly have a stellar record on human rights. (Not to mention one of the groups cheering this vote today is the NC chapter of the KKK. If the KKK thinks you're doing something right, I would think it might give some folks pause ... alas, it doesn't seem to.)
There was a time when the radical right didn't have to lie to get their agenda enacted; now they do. That is, in some way, progress.
ReplyDeleteThat is progress. The more reactionary the opposition, the closer is the time of positive change.
They still have KKK in North Carolina???
ReplyDeleteOh, dear God.
POTUS, OTH, just won or just lost the election. I'm not sure which, but I think "won".
ReplyDeleteBut I bet the whole process jumps the shark big time this year.
Obama's announcement, though nice, will not matter at all in the election. What? Tony Perkins and the other bigots are not going to vote for Obama now? Um...they weren't going to before.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone before this announcement actually believe Obama was more conservative than Bill O'Reilly and Dick Cheney on this issue? Of course not.
This won't matter at all.
It's doomed. A minority of voters realized that the amendment is *not* about gay marriage (though that was its objective), but that it makes marriage the *only* domestic relationship to have legal status, whether the couples are gay or straight. Let the law suits begin!
ReplyDeleteVoter turnout was high for a primary, a touch over 30% statewide. But that's still not a representative vote. A significant comment:
""The marriage amendment should bring out people on both sides but ... it will particularly bring out people in the Republican camp," Dr. Earl Sheridan, chairman of the department of public and international affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a Wilmington City Council member said earlier in the afternoon while polls were still open. "That's where the passion is."
The passion was church-driven. And that's the saddest thing of all.
Thank you for seeing that we don't have to hate people to have faith. There are terrible things going on right now and to try and focus on gay marriage is ridiculous. I hope that we, the believers, can see the error of our ways like we did with racism. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete