> Nevertheless, I would hope that everyone would be in favor of the second > half.� I think that this issue is so important and controversial that it should > be decided by the State Legislatures and Congress, which are elected by the > people, and not written by unelected judges. >
As will hardly surprise anyone, I could not possibly disagree more. By this logic, the Supreme Court should not have decided as it did in Brown vs Board of Education. If it were left up to states, there would still be legal discrimination in the deep South, almost 50 years after Brown. Rights are rights; they should not be at the mercy of transitory or even entrenched prejudiced majorities. It has been the province of the Supreme Court for 200 years to rule on the constitutionality of laws. A conservative, of all people, should respect that kind of established tradition. The article cited is also factually wrong, as well as philosophically wrongheaded. Marriage has not historically been about procreation; or, at least, not only about procreation. If that were so, sterile people would not be allowed to marry. Marriage has been about many things: property, honor, dynastic unions, balance of power, etc. The kind of nuclear family beloved of the Christian Right has not existed in this form for most of human history. To fetishize it - and to use this fiction as a means to beat up gay people (figuratively, although they certainly get beat up literally too by those enflamed by the prejudice encompassed in such articles) - is to violate historical truth in the service of an unworthy attempt to capitalize on some people's bias. Prejudices should be fought, not pandered to. Permitting gay people to marry legally does not do the slightest thing to infringe upon the rights of anyone else, despite the Christian Right's hysterical delusion that "the family" is somehow threatened by the idea. The family is not in any danger. The Constitution, however, might be. An amendment barring gay marriage is unnecessary and unworthy of even being considered. It purports to solve a nonexistent problem. It is shameful. Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last." - Dr Jerry Pournelle _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
