From gawker.com with excerpts below.
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...A 22-word clause in a 2005 [Texas] constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.
The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:
"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.
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A conservative leader whose organization helped draft the amendment dismissed Radnofsky’s position, saying it was similar to scare tactics opponents unsuccessfully used against the proposal in 2005.
"It’s a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful.
Shackelford said the clause was designed to be broad enough to prevent the creation of domestic partnerships, civil unions or other arrangements that would give same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage.
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My thoughts? Texas' attempt at institutionalized bigotry and discrimination may have technically backfired, but lawmakers are saying "we didn't mean to say 'fuck you' to everybody, just 5-10% of the population. Rather than go off what we said, we should all just accept this how we meant."
If someone can give me a real argument against same-sex marriages, civil unions, domestic partnerships, or whatever you want to call it, I will listen. I make no promises to agree. In fact, I will likely disagree strongly. I feel the notion that it will "threaten the sanctity of traditional marriage" is a pile of shit. One instance of marriage should not be impacted in the slightest by any other marriage.
4 comments:
According to Dan Savage, my main source of all news gay, they represent 3% of the population. This makes them a minority so small as to not be deserving of so much of our national consciousness. Nothing wrong with being gay, I have gay friends and have had gay roomies, but really? 3% is enough to warrant being in the news every single day?
On topic: gay "marriage" is wrong. Marriage is a religious observance that is not allowed by those religions to include anything but man and wife. The real problem is that somehow the government got involved and gave this religiously significant union special consideration. Now we have the government discriminating against this vanishingly small, but very loud, minority, which is wrong nearly to the point of being evil. The proper solution is to abolish governmental acknowledgment of "marriage" entirely.
FUCK 'EM ALL and their desire for special protections from Auntie Sam.
I agree that the term "marriage" is too intertwined with religion for its own good. I also do not think the government should take any action to "protect the sanctity" of anything. That is entirely the domain of religious establishments. It sounds like we are saying the same things, just with different verbiage.
At the very least, we seem to be in agreement. I'm about as surprised as an NFL DB on the receiving end of a Chicago Bears QB's interception in the last 20 years.
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