8 Feet Under / 8-5-10

Prop 8 died yesterday. Let's all have a moment of silen - nah, screw it. Instead? Celebration!

I can scarcely contain my glee. Not only does the invalidation of Prop 8 open up the door for hot steamy girl-on-girl action to legally become "not tonight Greta, I have a headache," but it also sticks it to the fundamentalist crowd, and that's wholly satisfying. (Get it? Get it?)

There's a point on the horizon, and we're aiming for it. This may be the scenic route, but keep in mind I'm going somewhere here. Just not quickly.

I'm gratified by this result. Prop 8 was the public's attempt to bypass the courts and mete out civil rights by majority vote, and that's a good idea, oh, never.

But why am I, and by extension, bunches of other Straight-Americans (oh yes, we liberal PC watchdogs can hyphenate ANYTHING), so pumped up that same-sex marriage rebecame legal in California? Most of us are not going to ditch our families this weekend, road-trip it down to San Francisco, and marry the first person on the street who matches our gender.

I/We are excited that America is living up to its ideals. Like equal protection under the law. Like the same civil rights applying to all non-felonious citizens. Like allowing two adults who love each other to express their love. (So OK, the third one isn't expressly mentioned in the Constitution or Declaration of F-U-Great-Britain, and I freely admit it's a controversial statement, but the pursuit of happiness is an ideal, whereas the "pursuit-of-all-happiness-EXCEPT-romantic-love" is somewhat less of an ideal.)

In case you're wondering, I'm going to gloss over the fact that SSM has not yet been re-instated in California, as the courts would prefer to see some closure on this issue from the Supreme Court (which may not even take the case) before granting marriage licenses to homosexuals again, and as the judge presiding in the case issued a stay keeping Prop 8 in effect for an undetermined period of time. Hey, I'll take the victories where I can get them.

Anyway, the point tonight is, why should a hetero guy care whether or not a bunch of gays can marry? I've actually been asked that question. And I usually answer with some variant of the paragraph up there earlier, the one about ideals.

But just as importantly, I'm really growing weary of all the hate. All the exact same arguments that people made for denying marriage to interracial couples have resurfaced in the fight for SSM. All the ugly views of gays as a subhuman species bubble up to the surface, and they make me angry. I've had gay friends, gay co-workers, gay bosses, and the fact that a large group of people wants them to be unhappy for reasons of sexual orientation... that boils my blood, and I will fight that crowd whenever the opportunity presents itself.

It's the right thing to allow an adult to love the adult of his or her choice. It's an ideal worth taking a stand for. We already fought the slavery battles, the race-related civil rights battles, the women's suffrage battles. Those are done and won. But this one remains. I'd just as soon be on the side of the good guys this time around.

P.S. The judge who ruled Prop 8 must go? He's a conservative, appointed by Reagan. He is.

Fathers' Day / 6-20-10

The apostrophe is in the right place.

So you know me, I'm perfectly willing to give the other side a chance to present its views, to make an argument, and I will listen with an open mind. That being said, I reserve the right to point out idiocy when it pops up. Or indefensible positions. Or easily debunked claims.

The Prop 8 trial gave us all of the above. The other side's people (the warm-hearted folks seeking to keep same-sex marriage illegal in CA through the continuance of Prop 8) had a chance to express their lovely views. And in a splendid trifecta, their lawyers filled all three stoopid boxes. Somebody say Bingo!

In the Idiocy Category, we were treated to: "You need only go back to your chambers, Your Honor, and pull down any dictionary, pull down any book that discusses marriage, and you will find this procreative purpose at its heart wherever you go."

That's a quote from the closing argument of pro-Prop 8 lawyer Charles Cooper, who spent the trial insisting that marriage's existence rests upon the foundation of procreation, that the two are inseparable. And he's right, in a way. People can make kids when they're married. (I should know.) And they often do. (They do.) But you have to ignore so many facts, circumstances and reality-based real events that really happen to real people in order to define the purpose of marriage as "It's there to help us make babies." Yet that's what he did all spring long, as this trial progressed: make the argument that procreation is an essential component of wedlock, so folks who can't procreate don't qualify. More on that later.

Cooper's a gem. More from him, on that same day (Thursday, since you asked):

"Marriage is to channel the sexual behavior between men and women into a procreative union. The state's main concern in regulating marriage and seeking to channel procreation is to minimize what I would call irresponsible procreation. The state doesn't need to worry about irresponsible sexual procreation with same-sex couples. Same sex-couples must be responsible to procreate."

Remember, he's fighting to keep SSM illegal, so I had to read what he said again and again to decipher it. It sounds like he's saying that marriage is there because kids do better when they're raised by a married couple. And that same-sex marriage would cut down on unwanted kids. And that responsible procreation would happen with gay parents.

Wait, whose side is he on again? I'm so confused.

In the Indefensible Position Category, I offer you this: Prop 8 itself.

The Supreme Court (of the United States, perhaps it rings a bell?) has stated the following:

"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law." That's from a 1967 decision.

Then, the same Burrito Supreme Court stated in 2003: "the intimate, adult consensual conduct at issue here [sodomy] was part of the liberty protected by the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process protections." This was the argument the court used to strike down anti-sodomy laws.

So the Nacho Supremes are saying marriage is a constitutionally guaranteed civil right (a "basic" one!) and homosexual behavior is constitutionally protected.

So same-sex marriage is unconstitutional how? Oh right, because you can't make kids out of it. Clearly, Sterile-Americans who plan to wed shouldn't bother to apply for a license. And you guys, you two widowers out there whose combined age just hit 168? Marriage is out of bounds. You know, constitutionally. Your union is unhelpful to society. Because you can't generate any kids (hopefully). Yeah, I'm sorry about that emergency hysterectomy you had when you were a teenager, you know, after that nasty car accident. No wedding for you. For legal reasons.

Laughable. Just laughable. Or at least it would be, if professional lawyers weren't trying so hard to make those arguments.

(Speaking of interesting positions, my research turned up the fact that convicted child molesters are permitted to marry in California. Not gay ones. Straight ones, mind you. Just saying. Of course they can, and I don't want to deny them anyway: marriage is a "basic civil right," after all.)

In the Easily Debunked By Actual Scientific Evidence Claims Category, zees ees wut aye hav, voila:

"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls. I was surprised to find that on some measures we found higher levels of [psychological] competency and lower levels of behavioral problems. It wasn't something I anticipated."

That's one conclusion of a 25-year study (uh, 25 years, chew on that for a while) which aimed to track the development of kids raised by lesbian mothers. The head researcher, one Nanette Gartell, gave us that money quote earlier this month. Suprisingly, the study was NOT commissioned by and published on communistgaysex.blogspot.com, but in the esteemed journal Pediatrics.

So how do you fight for Prop 8 again? I mean, the haters' lawyers have to have more bullets in their guns, right? More arguments? Better rationales?

They don't. But that doesn't mean the fight will end when judge Vaughn R. Walker issues his ruling, expected sometime this summer but not until at least July. Both sides' attorneys have signaled their intent to appeal to the California Taco Supreme Court, and perhaps even to the highest court in the land, the one that has already established that homosexual intercourse is legal and marriage is a fundamental right.

I wish I felt optimistic.