No on CA Prop 8
I never thought that Sarah Palin would end up being my spokesperson against Proposition 8, but that was one aspect of the vice presidential debate that genuinely surprised me.
PALIN: ... no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.
But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.
...
IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?
BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.
The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.
IFILL: Is that what your said?
PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.
IFILL: Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let's move to foreign policy.
It turns out that even a strongly religious conservative like Sarah Palin doesn't oppose gay marriage. At least none of the parts that our government has anything to do with. Co-ownership of property, hospital visitation, power of attorney, divorce, alimony, adoption, custody of children from previous heterosexual relationships, joint tax filing status, fifth amendment protection. Both candidates agree on full legal equality. The whole nine yards. Other conservative, religious people I've talked to share the same opinion. It's a completely semantic argument at this point.
This turns out to be a very productive way to cut to the chase. "What legal right do heterosexual couples have that homosexual couples should not have?" If the answer is "nothing" then all we're really talking about is what to put in the dictionary, not the law books.
And this brings me to CA Prop 8, which amends the California constitution to say "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Prop 8 is legal discrimnation, not semantic discrimination. It prevents couples from sharing health care, filing taxes jointly, collecting alimony, sharing child custody while doing nothing to address what those relationships are called. It targets the basis of the legal agreement between two adults while completely avoiding the supposedly important semantic and spiritual issues, and belies the progressive tolerance that conservative and religious people falsely claim to have.
If Prop 8 passes it will be a major loss - not just for homosexual couples and not just for civil libertarians - but to every fair-minded religious or socially conservative person with even half an interest in finding reasonable compromises in a diverse world. In addition to voting, please consider donating to No on Prop 8.
Update: The Cato Institute comes to the same conclusion. Gay marriage statutes invalidate rights and protections currently provided to unmarried couples under Virginia’s domestic violence lawsu, undermine private employers’ efforts to attract top employees by providing employee benefits to domestic partners, and prevent the courts from enforcing private agreements between unmarried couples, child custody and visitation rights, and end-of-life arrangements, such as wills, trusts and advance medical directives. See also this paper on the reasons why the federal marriage amendment is a bad idea.
Update: Palin supports an anti gay marriage amendment, so I guess she doesn't agree with Biden. Or McCain.
Side note: I'm also surprised that it's apparently so easy to amend the California constitution. The US constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House and ratified by three fourths of the states. It surprises me that you can change not just the law but the foundation of the law with a simple 50.1% majority of the voting public. Some people think this is a bad idea and I am one of them.
PALIN: ... no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.
But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.
...
IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?
BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.
The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.
IFILL: Is that what your said?
PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.
IFILL: Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let's move to foreign policy.
It turns out that even a strongly religious conservative like Sarah Palin doesn't oppose gay marriage. At least none of the parts that our government has anything to do with. Co-ownership of property, hospital visitation, power of attorney, divorce, alimony, adoption, custody of children from previous heterosexual relationships, joint tax filing status, fifth amendment protection. Both candidates agree on full legal equality. The whole nine yards. Other conservative, religious people I've talked to share the same opinion. It's a completely semantic argument at this point.
This turns out to be a very productive way to cut to the chase. "What legal right do heterosexual couples have that homosexual couples should not have?" If the answer is "nothing" then all we're really talking about is what to put in the dictionary, not the law books.
And this brings me to CA Prop 8, which amends the California constitution to say "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Prop 8 is legal discrimnation, not semantic discrimination. It prevents couples from sharing health care, filing taxes jointly, collecting alimony, sharing child custody while doing nothing to address what those relationships are called. It targets the basis of the legal agreement between two adults while completely avoiding the supposedly important semantic and spiritual issues, and belies the progressive tolerance that conservative and religious people falsely claim to have.
If Prop 8 passes it will be a major loss - not just for homosexual couples and not just for civil libertarians - but to every fair-minded religious or socially conservative person with even half an interest in finding reasonable compromises in a diverse world. In addition to voting, please consider donating to No on Prop 8.
Update: The Cato Institute comes to the same conclusion. Gay marriage statutes invalidate rights and protections currently provided to unmarried couples under Virginia’s domestic violence lawsu, undermine private employers’ efforts to attract top employees by providing employee benefits to domestic partners, and prevent the courts from enforcing private agreements between unmarried couples, child custody and visitation rights, and end-of-life arrangements, such as wills, trusts and advance medical directives. See also this paper on the reasons why the federal marriage amendment is a bad idea.
Update: Palin supports an anti gay marriage amendment, so I guess she doesn't agree with Biden. Or McCain.
Side note: I'm also surprised that it's apparently so easy to amend the California constitution. The US constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House and ratified by three fourths of the states. It surprises me that you can change not just the law but the foundation of the law with a simple 50.1% majority of the voting public. Some people think this is a bad idea and I am one of them.