Proposition 8.1
Public Disclaimer: I've been meaning to post this commentary since just after the election, but chose to set it aside for a little bit due to a nagging suspicion that a lot of people might get offended by my implicitly sarcastic remarks on the highly sensitive subject of marriage. In other words, if you decide to read this post, try to take it for what it is, an expression of a sentiment rather than an opinion.
On Bigotry
The most ironic twist in the continuing legal battle to legalize gay marriage in California came about when it became apparent that this year's Proposition 8 to "eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry" would not have passed without the overwhelming support of black voters. African-Americans were the only major racial group to openly oppose gay marriage and the fact that they turned out in large numbers to vote for Obama apparently tipped the scales. So whenever outraged progressives claiming that gays in California now have fewer rights than caged chickens talk about bigotry, closed-mindedness, intolerance, backwardness and hate-mongering, they should also realize that it is the same minority constituency that propelled their presidential nominee to victory that also dealt a major blow to gay rights. Oddly enough, Obama won the presidency by virtually the same margin of about 52% as Proposition 8.
What I find most intriguing in this whole incident is that based on purely statistical indicators -- such as the predominance of black children born out of wedlock (68% vs. 29% for whites and 15% for Asians) -- one would think that blacks have the weakest institution of marriage and yet they appear to be its most vehement supporters. So perhaps this is a good time to stop and think about the real reasons why California became the 30th state in the nation to democratically establish that marriage can only exist between two people of opposite genders, while no state so far has been able to pass a law proclaiming otherwise based on popular support as opposed to an action of activist judges.
Just over a decade ago, both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly voted for the Defense of Marriage Act which President Clinton signed into law. As far as we know, President-elect Obama has expressed no interest in trying to repeal it and has publicly defined marriage as a "sacred union" between "a man and a woman."
On a more personal note, contrary to popular belief, not even all gays like the notion of gay marriage. Many of those who grew up in traditional families, like one of my good friends back in New York, support the idea of civil unions but believe that marriage as an institution should be left alone. Perhaps because these kinds of views are so rarely openly expressed around the Bay Area -- where among the thousands of banners and stickers encouraging voters to defeat Prop. 8, one would have been hard pressed to spot a single one supporting it -- an open discussion on the issue is simply impossible.
This begs for a question whether a majority of members of one of the most persecuted minorities in the history of this country, along with Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama and my own gay friend, are all bigots. Can there be some other explanation for the persistent belief in our society that marriage should be defined in narrow, outdated terms as being a union of just one adult male and one adult female? And, better yet, what would happen if one day we all woke up free of this kind of "bigotry" and decided that love has no boundaries and that the institution of marriage should reflect this fundamental truth?
For starters, are we all bigots because we so steadfastly refuse to recognize plural marriage as a valid institution, sitting on the sidelines while those engaging in polygamy continue to be discriminated against and prosecuted, as they have been for centuries? During 1870's and 80's, Mormons who practiced plural marriage were jailed, stripped of their citizenship and property rights. To this day, the practice of polygamy has never been legitimized in the US although it has a long and illustrious history in every part of the world. In fact, anti-polygamy provisions had to be incorporated into state constitutions of Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona before they were allowed to be admitted into the Union.
More than a century later, at the time when Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was governor of Massachusetts, his state was the first one to allow gay marriage. Yet he never dared to openly express his views on polygamy, as it would have been a political suicide. We all know that a man can love multiple women and a woman can have enough love in her heart for more than one man. So, it would naturally follow that polyamory, which is also rather popular among the New Age liberals, should be finally recognized in some form of legalized plural marriage. To claim otherwise appears to go against every principle of modern progressive society yet nobody seems to have the courage to even raise the issue.
Now, if reproductive function is not a requisite part of marriage, as it clearly cannot be present in a homosexual union, then what right do we have to place any restrictions on those arbitrarily considered to be too close of kin to express their love for each other by signing a marriage contract? Egyptian pharaohs used to marry their sisters, so why is this no longer possible in the modern "enlightened" society? There is also no such limitation in the animal kingdom and inbreeding has been successfully employed as a tool for increasing meat and milk production in agriculture. To follow the same exact logic as in the above mentioned article, why do we restrict human freedoms more than those of caged animals? If a father and a daughter fall in love, there should be absolutely no reason to prohibit them from marrying each other.
Should we also reinstate pederasty, which since the times of Ancient Greece has often been considered a perfectly normal part of life, particularly beneficial to the adolescent boy who entered into an erotic relationship with an adult male mentor? Should we label a 40-year old man who falls in love with a 13-year old a "predator" or should he be allowed to express his genuine feelings like they often did in early Islamic societies, medieval Japan and apparently even pre-colonization California? It wasn't actually until German political philosopher Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's collaborator, denounced the ancient Greeks for "the abominable practice of sodomy" that pederasty finally stopped being socially acceptable in Europe, apparently as contradicting the progressive values of the impoverished proletariat of the time. Were Marx and Engels the true founding bigots of modern political philosophy and isn't it about time that we started looking beyond their outdated teachings?
At this point, can we all agree that in a perfect world, uninhibited by bigotry, marriage should be defined as a union between any number of people of any gender and age and regardless of kinship, which we shall call the new and improved Proposition 8.1? If so, all I would like to add is that we ought to be careful what we wish for...
Update: Apparently, at least in Canada, legalized gay marriage is indeed being used as an official defense in a fight for the rights of polygamists. Is California far behind?
On Bigotry
The most ironic twist in the continuing legal battle to legalize gay marriage in California came about when it became apparent that this year's Proposition 8 to "eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry" would not have passed without the overwhelming support of black voters. African-Americans were the only major racial group to openly oppose gay marriage and the fact that they turned out in large numbers to vote for Obama apparently tipped the scales. So whenever outraged progressives claiming that gays in California now have fewer rights than caged chickens talk about bigotry, closed-mindedness, intolerance, backwardness and hate-mongering, they should also realize that it is the same minority constituency that propelled their presidential nominee to victory that also dealt a major blow to gay rights. Oddly enough, Obama won the presidency by virtually the same margin of about 52% as Proposition 8.
What I find most intriguing in this whole incident is that based on purely statistical indicators -- such as the predominance of black children born out of wedlock (68% vs. 29% for whites and 15% for Asians) -- one would think that blacks have the weakest institution of marriage and yet they appear to be its most vehement supporters. So perhaps this is a good time to stop and think about the real reasons why California became the 30th state in the nation to democratically establish that marriage can only exist between two people of opposite genders, while no state so far has been able to pass a law proclaiming otherwise based on popular support as opposed to an action of activist judges.
Just over a decade ago, both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly voted for the Defense of Marriage Act which President Clinton signed into law. As far as we know, President-elect Obama has expressed no interest in trying to repeal it and has publicly defined marriage as a "sacred union" between "a man and a woman."
On a more personal note, contrary to popular belief, not even all gays like the notion of gay marriage. Many of those who grew up in traditional families, like one of my good friends back in New York, support the idea of civil unions but believe that marriage as an institution should be left alone. Perhaps because these kinds of views are so rarely openly expressed around the Bay Area -- where among the thousands of banners and stickers encouraging voters to defeat Prop. 8, one would have been hard pressed to spot a single one supporting it -- an open discussion on the issue is simply impossible.
This begs for a question whether a majority of members of one of the most persecuted minorities in the history of this country, along with Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama and my own gay friend, are all bigots. Can there be some other explanation for the persistent belief in our society that marriage should be defined in narrow, outdated terms as being a union of just one adult male and one adult female? And, better yet, what would happen if one day we all woke up free of this kind of "bigotry" and decided that love has no boundaries and that the institution of marriage should reflect this fundamental truth?
For starters, are we all bigots because we so steadfastly refuse to recognize plural marriage as a valid institution, sitting on the sidelines while those engaging in polygamy continue to be discriminated against and prosecuted, as they have been for centuries? During 1870's and 80's, Mormons who practiced plural marriage were jailed, stripped of their citizenship and property rights. To this day, the practice of polygamy has never been legitimized in the US although it has a long and illustrious history in every part of the world. In fact, anti-polygamy provisions had to be incorporated into state constitutions of Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona before they were allowed to be admitted into the Union.
More than a century later, at the time when Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was governor of Massachusetts, his state was the first one to allow gay marriage. Yet he never dared to openly express his views on polygamy, as it would have been a political suicide. We all know that a man can love multiple women and a woman can have enough love in her heart for more than one man. So, it would naturally follow that polyamory, which is also rather popular among the New Age liberals, should be finally recognized in some form of legalized plural marriage. To claim otherwise appears to go against every principle of modern progressive society yet nobody seems to have the courage to even raise the issue.
Now, if reproductive function is not a requisite part of marriage, as it clearly cannot be present in a homosexual union, then what right do we have to place any restrictions on those arbitrarily considered to be too close of kin to express their love for each other by signing a marriage contract? Egyptian pharaohs used to marry their sisters, so why is this no longer possible in the modern "enlightened" society? There is also no such limitation in the animal kingdom and inbreeding has been successfully employed as a tool for increasing meat and milk production in agriculture. To follow the same exact logic as in the above mentioned article, why do we restrict human freedoms more than those of caged animals? If a father and a daughter fall in love, there should be absolutely no reason to prohibit them from marrying each other.
Should we also reinstate pederasty, which since the times of Ancient Greece has often been considered a perfectly normal part of life, particularly beneficial to the adolescent boy who entered into an erotic relationship with an adult male mentor? Should we label a 40-year old man who falls in love with a 13-year old a "predator" or should he be allowed to express his genuine feelings like they often did in early Islamic societies, medieval Japan and apparently even pre-colonization California? It wasn't actually until German political philosopher Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's collaborator, denounced the ancient Greeks for "the abominable practice of sodomy" that pederasty finally stopped being socially acceptable in Europe, apparently as contradicting the progressive values of the impoverished proletariat of the time. Were Marx and Engels the true founding bigots of modern political philosophy and isn't it about time that we started looking beyond their outdated teachings?
At this point, can we all agree that in a perfect world, uninhibited by bigotry, marriage should be defined as a union between any number of people of any gender and age and regardless of kinship, which we shall call the new and improved Proposition 8.1? If so, all I would like to add is that we ought to be careful what we wish for...
Update: Apparently, at least in Canada, legalized gay marriage is indeed being used as an official defense in a fight for the rights of polygamists. Is California far behind?