Today California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger elevated conservative morals over freedom of association by his veto of a bill that would have legalized same sex marriage. I don't see what the whole fuss is about this issue. There is absolutely no justification for not allowing gay people to marry other than "I hate gays and want to see them treated as second class citizens."
The argument basically boils down to "Gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because of their lifestyle choices, they are in the minority and I think that by them having normal families it will have a negative impact on our culture. If they became straight, it would be OK for them to marry someone of the opposite sex."
What if the word gay was replaced by Jew and there were a few other changes to the above paragraph:
"Jews shouldn't be allowed to marry because of their lifestyle choices, they are in the minority and I think that by them having normal families it will have a negative impact on our culture. If they became Christian, it would be OK for them to marry someone of a different religion."
While the top one is accepted in our society, the bottom one certainly isn't. I don't believe that either type of thought should be incorporated into the laws of a civilized society that values freedom.
People like to say, "well the voters in x number of states voted against gay marriage." Well, the voters in x number of districts voted for Hitler, Slavery, Jim-Crow laws, and many other things. Does that make it right to legislate morality? No.
I understand that some laws, such as abortion, can have a negative impact on society since someone (the unborn fetus) is actually harmed by the law mandating legal abortions. This would be a case in which the freedoms of two people (the mother and the child) have to be weighed against each other, because with either decision, one person's freedom is taken away. However, legalizing gay marriage does not take away anyone's freedoms, it extends freedom to more people. Shouldn't the "land of the free" support a situation such as this, regardless of what the majority thinks?
2005-09-30
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2 comments:
Is Schwarzenegger a Republican or Democrat? LOL, that just goes to show you how much I read the tabloids. I know that his wife is Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, but that's it. Heck, I don't even know what party the Kennedys belong to, now that I think about it. ::sigh:: Politics can be so confusing. I don't know how people decide one way or the other.
I would agree if you were talking about a certain race/culture. In my opinion, being gay is none of those. It's just a lifestyle. The gays are always complaining about something. They don't have a culture. Their culture is a fantasy.
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