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A “traditional” marriage that America should celebrate!
Two years ago, the religious cabals and their amen corners that were campaigning to preserve “traditional marriage” (aka the Yes on Prop 8 campaign) won 52% of the vote and took away the rights of same sex couples to enter into consentual mutual contracts with one another.
While I believe that marriage licenses are no business of the state and an archaic idea should ultimately be abolished, I want to offer my belated congratulations to the Mormon Church and their zealot megachurch allies on their Nov. 2008 victory that helped preserve this institution and kept “family values” alive and well. Thanks to your hard work and undying dedication to the Yes on 8 campaign, people like Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla are now free to keep “traditional marriage” alive in America and be the bastion of “family values” for the rest of America to emulate without interference from them pesky and annoying gay, lesbian and transgendered people.
I don’t know what we supporters of marriage equality were thinking when we were out there holding our protest signs during the 2008 election. We must have been real shortsighted and selfish in not allowing nuptials like this to occur. Thanks to the example of Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla of New York City, I have now seen the light and regret saying all kinds of nasty things about your church and your “values.” I hope in time you will come to forgive me for my dereliction and pure selfishness on the issue of “traditional marriage.” The values of Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla are something that I hope my daughter will one day emulate when she becomes an adult and is considering when she decides to find that special someone of the opposite sex.
Anyway, have a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Hannakuh, Festivus or whatever manufacutred…oops I meant “traditional” holiday you choose to celebrate.
Love,
Guy Fawkes
To the reader:
Here is example of “traditional marriage” that the Yes on 8 campaign was fighting to preserve. As you read their story, be sure to enjoy and celebrate this cherished institution that people from the Mormon Church and Rick Warren fought so hard to “preserve” for people like Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla. As the New York Times reminds us, we need more “traditional marriages” like this in America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/fashion/weddings/19vows.html
This post was obviously written in Swahili. WHAT are you trying to say?
Geoff. If you voted Yes on 8, you should be celebrating the nuptials of this couple. Keep that bubbly flowing for all to enjoy.
Isn’t this the model of “traditional marriage” that people like you and my “distinguished” elected representatives John “Car Show” Campbell and Don “The Spanker” Wagner are trying to preserve? I wanted to show that I am not a sore loser and offer my sincere congratulations for your “victory.”
Still the Swahili?
How about I try “speaking in tongues” when I post stuff? A language that your religious zealot supporters can comprehend. If I had only taken that language instead of French in high school, maybe I would understand what your brand of “conservatism” is all about.
Maybe I can help out, Geoff. This is not Swahili at all, but what’s called “irony,” and “satire.”
The author, Guy Fawkes, is a supporter of marriage equality. (Perhaps known to you as, allowing gays to marry.) He remembers quite clearly, as do I, one of the main arguments of Proposition 8 backers – that is, opponents of marriage equality, which was that traditional heterosexual marriage is the bedrock of our community and contributes indispensable stability to our society, and the children-think-of-the-children.
And also that, allowing gays to marry the person they love would somehow ruin the traditional institution, although they were never able to quite say how.
This always seemed somewhat ludicrous to those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear the staggering divorce rates and other measures of failure of your average heterosexual marriage. This news story of Riddell and Partilla is just one more entertaining illustration of the non-sacredness of traditional marriage.
When Guy Fawkes congratulates Prop 8 supporters on this, he is being “ironic” or “sarcastic” – i.e., he means the opposite of what he is saying.
I’m not really sure if you are the intended target for this post anyway, as I don’t remember for sure if you were a marriage equality opponent / Prop 8 backer, and if so, whether or not the special sacredness of traditional marriage was one of your arguments. Hopefully not! I respect and appreciate conservatives like Ted Olsen who take equal rights seriously, more than they take whatever icky feelings they may get from contemplating gay sex.
I was hoping for a thank you from the Prop 8 supporters/backers of “traditional marriage.” All this talk about “values” and “preserving tradition” and they don’t have the courtesy to accept a humble and sincere compliment on a job well done.
I thought it was proper etiqutte to say thank you when someone paid you a compliment on doing a good job. That’s a lesson that I learned from my parents. What kind of example are they setting for the children?
Prop 8 supporters…..”THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!”
” I respect and appreciate conservatives … who take equal rights seriously, more than they take whatever icky feelings they may get from contemplating gay sex.”
Weirdly stated Vern.
Regardless, I try not to so contemplate .. thanks.
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Ditto. I don’t even like to think about half the straight people in the world, having sex. The important thing is we all deserve the opportunity to marry the person we love.
Hi Guy
First, let me say: your welcome.
Now, a couple points:
1. You don’t really need to use the term “traditional marriage” since, throughout history, there is only ONE definition for marriage: the union between one man and one woman. “Marriage” is just fine…
2. Regarding your assertion that Prop 8 “…took away the rights of same sex couples to enter into consentual mutual contracts with one another…”, you are factually wrong. In fact, the California Supreme Court had already ruled that they “…in recent years has enacted
comprehensive domestic partnership legislation under which a same-sex couple
may enter into a legal relationship that affords the couple virtually all of the same
substantive legal benefits and privileges, and imposes upon the couple virtually all
of the same legal obligations and duties, that California law affords to and imposes
upon a married couple.”
(Full court decision found here: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/s147999.pdf)
Prop 8 had NOTHING to do with attempting to affect this decision.
One would hope that you’d have the intellectual honesty to amend your assertion.
3. The issue at hand has NOTHING to do with “civil rights” or “marriage equality”. It is a matter of definition. “Marriage” is a contract between one man and one woman. This definition is consistent throughout history and, until Webster recently changed its definition of “marriage” (of course, this is the same Webster who now says that “irregardless” is a word), remains defined as “between one man and one woman”.
4. As a final note, while your anecdotal evidence of a failed marriage contract is charming, it is ultimately useless, as it hardly counts as statistical evidence. Anecdotes, as references to a point, have some use, but utterly useless as a basis for a debate.
Tim
Anecdote? How about something like 50%?
It wasn’t me that coined the phrase “traditional marriage.”
If memory serves me correct, it was the Prop 8 supporters that threw that term “traditional marriage” around ad nauseum during the 2008 election. So if you want to bring up “intellectual honesty,” one would hope that you would amend your assertion that I coined the phrase. The people that used the phrase were the theocratic amen corners of Rick Warren, Maggie Gallagher and the magic underwear wearing deacons of the Mormon Church. These people threw around the phrase more often than the hyper-testosterone loaded patrons who throw dollar bills at strippers on the mainstage at the Sahara Theater in Anaheim on weekends. But when it’s someone on “your side” in violation of “intellectual honesty,” it must be OK to look the other way.
It’s not useless to point out the hypocrisy of people who espouse a “limited government” agenda but want to tell us how to live our private or our economic lives. The Prop 8 proponents have not told us what the clear and present danger was in allowing same sex couples (consenting adults) to marry. The difference between same sex couples wanting to marry and the actions of Carrie Anne Riddell and John Partilla is that the former does not harm anyone in any way. Where the latter’s actions directly affected the lives of the ex-spouses and their children. You know “the children” The same ones your Prop 8 supporters lamented about if same sex marriage were to be allowed.
While the latter’s actions are not a criminal offense (nor do I believe they should be), why is it that adultery is allowed but marrying the one that you love is prohibited by law? And if it is the law, wouldn’t there be a smidgen of a chance that the stated law may be wrong and immoral and should be nullified?
Good to know there is one “conservative” who learned some manners. Glad to know you can accept compliments.
I’m re-reading my post, looking for where I suggested that you coined teh term “traditional marriage”. Couldn’t find it.
No matter…
Again, the issue here is teh definition of marriage. Whether “traditionally married” couples stay together, throw dollars at strippers, or whatever, it doesn’t change the definition of marriage.
And, with regard to your “limited Government” statement, I don’t see anyone here telling you how you can live your life. I’m simply pointing out that the union between one man and one man is not, by definition, marriage. (No more than my marriage to my wife can be called “homosexual marriage”).
Hey what about all that Old Testamenty concubinage ‘n shit. Hell Solomon had hundreds of wives ‘n he was freakin’ king o’ israel. You cain’t hardly get more traditional ‘n that.
“You don’t really need to use the term “traditional marriage” since, throughout history, there is only ONE definition for marriage: the union between one man and one woman. “Marriage” is just fine”
Don’t read much history, do you? Throughout this thing you call “history”, there have in fact been multiple forms of marriage, and even societies that functioned fine without marriage at all.
Or without marriage licenses for that matter… an archaic “tradition” that should be abolished.
Actually, I read a lot of history. And, although their certainly have been many attempts to characterize or define any type of union as “marriage”, the definition has always been the same.
And, on your point, other types of unions, calling them “marriage”, have not stood the test of time. Not in this country anyway….
Perhaps, if it’s a grossly broadened definition of marriage (oh, say, in parts of the middle east) you want, why just go there? Oh…wait…they’d be sentenced to death…nevermind…
This post and the author’s “nom de plume” of Guy Fawkes is clever. The people of the common wealth celebrate Guy Fawkes Day of the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I on November the 5th. Fawkes effigies are burned to commemorate the day. There is question as to whether the celebrators are honoring Fawkes execution or his attempt to take down the government.
The debate regarding marriage is unjustifiably “explosive.” The use of this rhetorical tool reveals the contrast between reality and pretense. The definition of satire is: a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
Guy you must feel as though you are being challenged for questioning the efficacy and folly of the prejudicial proposition 8 to discriminate against same sex couples.
This post reveals the hypocritical position held by those who supported Proposition 8. A just society provides equality under the law for all.
GG Voter:
I don’t feel challenged in the least for questioning inane childish behavior and people who get their magic underwear tied up in bunches over ownership of a eight letter word. I do believe that if the No on 8 campaign would have come out and said that they were in favor of abolishing marriage licenses in addition to their marriage equality stance, I believe we would not be having this conversation in California today. (This was an issue where I parted company with many a No on 8 supporter and a subject that will be reserved for a future post explaining why DOMA and marriage licenses should be throw into the trashbin of history) At the very minimum, it would have exposed some of the conservatives that throw around the term “limited government” for the utter double speaking frauds that they are.
Perhaps, if it’s a grossly broadened definition of marriage (oh, say, in parts of the middle east) you want, why just go there? Oh…wait…they’d be sentenced to death…nevermind…
And that is also such a typical stupid rightwing comeback #1) if you don’t like it then leave America; and #2) certain backward countries are worse, so don’t complain! (and don’t try to make things better here.)
Me & Hirota have been having this discussion since before he joined this blog, and apparently his bizarre position is to put semantics over real people’s lives. Yes, millions of real people who deserve to have the same rights the rest of us do; and despite what the Court apparently wrote that you quoted above (I’m taking your word that that’s an accurate quote and not out of context) there are hundreds of important rights that marriage confers and domestic partnerships don’t. (When I get around to it I’ll do a whole post on some of those.)
It’s strange, the insistence on preserving an old limited definition of a WORD, at the expense of millions of real people’s lives. Is that what conservatism is about? Ted Olson doesn’t think so.
“And, on your point, other types of unions, calling them “marriage”, have not stood the test of time. Not in this country anyway….”
If by the “test of time” you mean centuries of tradition, then yes, other forms of marriage certainly meet this criteria. On the other hand if you mean “the test of time” in terms of marriage as a successful social institution, then I suggest you reflect on the comparative rates of divorce between the U.S. and other countries. At over 50%, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of divorce in the world. So citing the “tradition” of an institution with an over 50% failure rate are evidence of the need for more of the same is a weak argument.
More generally, the fact is that this country was founded upon principles that represented a definitive break from tradition – the Ancien Régime, feudalism, religious persecution, etc. The litmus test for the extension of rights in this country has never been that of tradition. Abolition, suffrage, Civil Rights and other extensions of liberty were justified as definitive breaks from the traditions of slavery, patriarchy, and segregation – not ironically forms of oppression steeped in arguments of “tradition.”
Beautiful, ww. Let me take the opportunity to bold your last paragraph.
The fact is that this country was founded upon principles that represented a definitive break from tradition – the Ancien Régime, feudalism, religious persecution, etc. The litmus test for the extension of rights in this country has never been that of tradition. Abolition, suffrage, Civil Rights and other extensions of liberty were justified as definitive breaks from the traditions of slavery, patriarchy, and segregation – not ironically forms of oppression steeped in arguments of “tradition.”
Guy Fawkes rocks!
The whole strawman argument defending a “traditional” marriage implies there’s an insidious plot to overthrow the family. Paranoid ideas like this are knee-jerk reactions to having to change one’s perspective. The institution we call marriage is fluid and has undergone changes reflecting the changes society in general has weathered over time. I’m flattered that homosexuals wish to express their loving relationships in the same way heterosexuals do–a public affirmation of one’s choice of life mate. Ironic, huh? And to think the Mormons mobilized tons of money and influence to get Prop 8 passed! It makes me wish I will not be so polite when they come a’knockin’ on my door Saturday morning! Talk about an insidious agenda—————-MORMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
… AND Catholics AND Evangelicals. And most Republican politicians, who saw it as a good way to get votes.
But yeah, Mormons really outdid themselves on Prop 8, sending millions from Utah.
Vern,
No mention of Prop 8 supporters would be complete without mention of this man.
In 2010, 58% of the voters in the 70th AD, a district that went No on Prop 8, voted for a man who believes that there is, to quote The Other, “…an insidious plot to overthrow the family.” This man also believes that these uncouth derelicts wouldn’t be acting this way if they got spanked by their parents and other adult authority figures.
On this day forth, this man that we speak of shall no longer go by his given birth name. Upon authority of myself, I shall give this man who claims to represent the interests of the 70th AD (or 58% of them) a new name. A name that will represent exemplify his true nature and no so secret bedroom fetishes. A name that will bring prestige and dignity to the office and district he represents.
To the man formerly known as Donald P. Wagner, former trustee of the Saddleback Community College District. On behalf of the people of the Orange Juice who reside in the 70th Assembly District (and those who live outside our idyllic master planned paradise), you shall be referred to to this point forward as…..(***drumroll please***)
“The Spanker.”
Guy,
I’m glad to see you have such disdain for the electoral process of the country that you and the commenters on here purport to hold in such high esteem. So no elections are legitimate unless a candidate gets 100% of the vote?
I don’t think he was belittling the 58%. It was a big victory for your side. Obviously in 2010 all the folks who had come out two years earlier to vote no on 8 and yes on Obama stayed home, and all the folks who just automatically check off anyone with an R by their name carried the day. Tragic…
I have utter disdain for those that throw around overused cliches and terms to entice people to vote for them while glossing over the real issues or any perceived shortcomings that they may have. In the case of The Spanker, the man comes out and criticizes public employee pensions when in fact, he never answered any questions about why he was taking advantage of the pensions and benefits that he was criticizing.
Most politicians, Democratic and Republican alike, liken voters to the dog in the movie “Up” that got distracted by the mere illusion of a squirrel. They rely on the fact that we have short attention spans and that we will respond in to short verbal cliches or phrases like Pavlov’s dog. “Change You Can Believe In” and “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” are two examples of this. Or one that gets thrown around to justify overseas wars and foreign aid, “Islamo-Fascism.”
Guy, while I don’t know that Vern’s interpretation of your comment is the same as mine, I will give you credit for applying your standards to both Democrats and Republicans in this case.
Guy. Merry Christmas!
Please refrain from the numbers game in covering politics as it can backlash.
Case in point is Bill Clinton who in the 92 presidential race garnered only 43% of the national vote. In his 1996 reelection, as the incumbent president in 96, he still didn’t get over half of the votes cast with 49.2%
Due to the weather I might be mistaken but 58 is a larger number than 49 or 43
And should you reference a two person race president Obama only received 52.9%.
I rest my case.
Again, Larry. Guy is not saying 58% is not a decent win. (Are you, Guy?) He’s just lamenting that 58% of residents there could vote for a politician so backward, two years after opposing Prop 8 and electing Obama.
The fact that The Spanker got elected into office along with the re-election of the leader of “The Resistance” (John Campbell) just boggles my mind. I’m not saying the wins weren’t decent, I’m trying to understand why the people in the 70th would vote for a guy whose mindset is stuck in the 1910s and not the 2010s. Plus, he wasn’t that approachable when I wanted to speak with him. At least Chuck DeVore was more approachable and had a personality. (For the record, I get along well with Chuck personally despite our differences)
I still don’t get it – everyone, regardless of their sexual nature or preference, can marry a person of the opposite sex. So, where is the discrimination?
Ha ha. Ha ha ha. You’re joking, right. I hope.