View Single Post
Old 17th April 2009, 11:58 AM   #138
Brown
Penultimate Amazing
 
Brown's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 12,984
Originally Posted by pgwenthold View Post
As for the state senator's comments, it always brings me back to the question that I continually ask: Honestly, how do the anti-gay people feel knowing that they are using the exact same arguments that are used by racists? You could take almost any anti-gay marriage rant and substitute "interracial" for "gay" and it would be something you would have heard 50 years ago.

Merits of the argument aside, such a realization would give me serious pause.
Actually, there is an importance difference between the two.

Let's assume that the question is whether dark-skinned people--a minority--ought to be allowed to vote. In the event that this right to vote is eventually put into place, the light-skinned people actually do lose something. In particular, their voting power is diluted. If more people enter the voting pool, the power of a single vote is reduced.

Or if a court ruling determines that minority students ought to be allowed to attend a school that was previously attended only by students of the majority, the majority could actually lose something: classroom space, teacher-to-student attention, convenience.

In the case of same-sex marriage, however, the granting of equal protection to same-sex couples deprives the opposite-sex couples of nothing. Voting power and schools are limited resources, but marriage is virtually an unlimited resource.

Indeed, the advocates argued to the Iowa Supreme Court that same-sex marriage would hurt opposite-sex marriage. The Court asked a simple question, "In what way?" There was no answer to this question that could withstand even modest scrutiny, and as far as I can tell there remains no reasonable answer today. Some people feel that they have been hurt by the ruling, but they are unable to say how.
__________________
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I am very sorry. I wish it were otherwise.
-- The Day The Earth Stood Still, screenplay by Edmund H. North

"Don't you get me wrong. I only want to know." -- Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, lyrics by Tim Rice
Brown is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top