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The Real Purpose Of Marriage: Sex, Not Love – America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments

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I’ve been working to try to understand the recent arguments America’s Right Wing has been trying to make against marriage equality. If you have been following the reports from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial that will determine the constitutionality of Proposition 8, or have read, “Gay People Cannot Be Allowed To Marry Because Straight People Cannot Be Trusted?,” my piece detailing the, dare I say, “ridiculous” arguments America’s Right Wing is using against same-sex marriage, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But even well before Prop 8, America’s conservatives have been actively involved in maintaining second-class citizenship for gay and lesbian Americans.

Whether you have or you haven’t been following along, let me share with you (even more of) the reasons why I say America’s Right Wing’s anti-marriage equality arguments are, indeed, ridiculous.

The Real Purpose Of Marriage: Sex, Not Love is the fifth and final part in our week-long series, America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.

Part Five: The Purpose Of Marriage

Another ridiculous and disturbing argument America’s Right Wing makes against same-sex marriage goes to the very core of how conservatives view the institution of marriage. Now, let me remind you that marriage has a long and, at times, by twenty-first century standards, inglorious history. Marriage in the past was used to united kingdoms, secure wealth, subjugate women and treat them as property (chattel,) and so on. (The Bible details many examples of this.) It is only in recent times that the concept of marriage has become about love, not money. Except for the anti-marriage equality folks on the Right, who still insist marriage is not about love, but about sex.

Specifically, and this is central to the argument used in the Prop 8 case, America’s Right Wing says that the primary purpose of the institution of marriage is to “channel” man’s natural desires into procreation. In “Hijacking the Marriage Debate,” at the National Review, Thomas Messner writes,

“Marriage is not fundamental to our ‘existence’ and ‘survival’ merely because it sometimes is marked by expressions of love, commitment, and respect. Marriage is fundamental to our existence and survival because it remains society’s best and most effective way of ordering sexual relations between men and women, encouraging procreation, and increasing the odds that a child will have the influence and support of both a mother and a father.”

Once again, this shows the ridiculousness and zero-sum mindedness of conservatives, like Messner.

What has gender or orientation have to do with the desire and ability to marry?

One of the essential questions surrounding state-sanctioning of marriage, (opposite-sex or same-sex marriage,) is, “Is it in the best interests of the state?” If the state has a vested interest in marriage, then it has a right to intercede and to regulate. (So lawmakers think.)

Is it in the state’s best interest to offer marriage only to opposite-sex couples? It is not.

Marriage does afford couples many benefits, including monogamy (should they choose,) financial and emotional stability, and societal acceptance, recognition, and support. Why should these ideals be limited to opposite-sex couples, when clearly it is to society’s benefit, and therefore, the state’s, to offer these to everyone?

(Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin published a piece on her blog yesterday titled, “Google to Pay Heterosexuals Less Than Homosexuals,” which exhibited the extreme arrogance and sense of entitlement America’s Right Wing, especially the “Tea Party,” has. It also displayed their extreme lack of desire to understand social issues, especially as they relate to non-traditional families. In, “Michelle Malkin: “Google to Pay Heterosexuals Less Than Homosexuals,” I write, “Yes, that’s right. America’s Right Wing, ever trolling to find ways to “prove” they are victims and the unfairly-treated majority, thinks now that because same-sex couples, who for, well, forever, have had to pay over a lifetime thousands upon thousands of dollars more in taxes than their opposite-sex married counterparts, are getting a “break” from beneficent corporations like Google, that it’s tantamount to discrimination against straights.”)

And again, the conservative dictum that only a mother and a father can raise a child comes to the fore. And we know — studies prove it, as does common sense, and millions of single parents and same-sex parent couples — that children can thrive in a variety of households, as long as love, not procreation, is the basis for the desire to be a family.

Sad, when you think about it, that the people who claim to be trying to “protect” marriage, see it as merely an institution to foster procreation.

So, the Right thinks that if gay marriage is legalized, children will be in trouble. Somehow, parents will give up their biological children automatically to same-sex couples, or, same-sex couples will come to straight households in the dead of night and, like Peter Pan, perhaps, convince children to fly away to NeverLand.

Additionally, the Right fears that if same-sex marriage is legalized, straight couples will cease to want to marry, and straight married couples will cease to want to have children.

We’re not going to steal children from same-sex couples, and we’re not going to stop having them or adopting them, regardless of the laws surrounding same-sex marriage. But laws that support same-sex marriage would serve to strengthen our families and protect children. Sadly, the Right is only concerned about protecting straight marriage and protecting children of straight parents.

Back in January, Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight.com (now a New York Times site,) published, “Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans.” He writes, “Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.” (Emphasis added.)

It’s almost as if the anti-marriage equality crowd secretly thinks if same-sex marriage (I’m sorry, when same-sex marriage) becomes legal, their spouses will leave them and enter into a same-sex relationship. Perhaps they’re right?

The other fact — since we’re bringing up statistics — the Right doesn’t want you to know, is that states that offer full marriage equality also have the lowest incidents of child homelessness. It’s true. In, “2.9 Million Orphans, Happy Father’s Day,” I write that, for example, Utah, which “ranks #38 [50 being the worst,] prohibits adoption by ‘a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage.’ Coincidence?”

The Right wants to make people believe that “homosexual marriage” (they love to call it that too, because “homosexual’ sounds “bad,”) will somehow obliterate “traditional marriage.” Well, it won’t. Marriage, is marriage.

In a bigoted and strongly fallacious piece, The Family Research Council says that, “[h]omosexual marriage degrades a time-honored institution.” The Family Research Council thinks that marriages are like iPhones. The moment a new model comes out, it makes the existing ones less valuable.

The folks who really should be angry at that are the folks who have been in long-term marriages. Those marriages have withstood the test of time, making their relationship one of beauty and value.

All of this bigoted, hate-mongering is preposterous.

As is this concept: If marriage equality becomes the law of the land, it will mean that homosexuals are normal.

Oh, wait. We ARE.

And that, my friends, is what America’s anti-marriage equality Right Wing is really afraid of.

(image: kevindooley)

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News

Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

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3 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Minutes before Donald Trump addressed his MAGA crowd at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021 his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump spoke to his supporters, vowing to “take our country back” because the Trump “family didn’t get in this fight for just four years. We are in this fight to the bitter end.”

Fast forward to April, 2024.

Lara Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, after Donald Trump’s efforts to install her and his hand-picked RNC chairman, Michael Whatley. Whatley is a North Carolina Republican who served on George W. Bush’s Florida recount team for the 2000 presidential election that was decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. Years later Whatley declared, “it was really the first time that Republicans got down into the trenches and fought,” and claimed, “if we were not there, they were going to steal it.”

Now both Michael Whatley and Lara Trump are leading the RNC, and with Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, they are continuing the ex-president’s focus on “election integrity.”

Tuesday night Lara Trump served up some insight into what they’re planning.

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots. We want people all across this country –” she said before host Eric Bolling interrupted her.

“I want to hear this, this is really fascinating to me,” Bolling said. “You have 100,000 people who are, I think I saw paid at one point, but whatever – irrelevant, but, so they will be stationed inside polling places? I didn’t even know you can do that. Tell us about it.”

Trump replied, “there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations in the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted, and that gives us a great ability as we head into what I assume everyone understands is the most important election of our lifetime.”

Bolling went on to ask, “Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?”

“Yup,” Trump replied. “And that means Eric that they should know and they can count how many ballots come in, and how many ballots should go out of every single polling location.”

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She went on to say if anyone cheats, “we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”

“It is not worth it to cheat in a federal election, that is a crime my friends you do not want to commit.”

Bolling was referring to the more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers the RNC reportedly has lined up to monitor vote counting. In a joint statement the Trump campaign and the RNC called it, “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.”

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele blasted Lara Trump.

“Lara, you know why there was ‘a moratorium on the RNC for 40 years’? Because the RNC was caught cheating. The RNC was placed under a 1982 Consent decree for voter caging. Voter caging hinders an eligible voter’s ability to vote. The process involves efforts to identify and disenfranchise improperly registered voters solely on the basis of undeliverable mail. It often leads to the unwarranted purging of election rolls of otherwise eligible voters.”

“So,” Steele continued, “given the continued lies about the 2020 election and your daddy-in-law claiming if he loses in 2024 it’s because the election is rigged, you’re planning to have your people ‘physically handle the ballots’–and we’re supposed to think that’s a good idea?”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the protection of democracy, also served up strong criticism.

“What does this mean, they will have thugs to physically take the ballots to make sure they are marked for Republican candidates?” Ben-Ghiat asked. “Sounds like a perfect authoritarian election plan to me.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

 

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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21 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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