Josh,
Do you agree with Representative Elrod that “separation of church and state” constitutionally prevents a federal marriage amendment? How can any conservative support someone who talks like that?

Generally, I agree with Josh on this.

The main role of the Federal government in the definition of marriage is for tax purposes! Who do we consider “married” on an income tax return. States, of course, do the same thing. But their concern extends to property rights. So, to a degree, marriage has to be at least considered by the government.

But if Conservative Hoosier is right in his characterization of Elrod’s position, I certainly disagree with him. The simple reason is that an amendment, if passed, is by nature constitutional. An amendment is part of the Constitution. It could be inconsistent with another part of the Constitution, but it would be just as much a part of the Constitution as the First Amendment.

So where is he on guns? A heck of lot more hoosiers own guns than are gay or have abortions. Explain to somebody that you want to outlaw thousands of dollars of their property and they turn out. Most people don’t have five dollars in being gay or having an abortion, but gun owners are vested, many have as much in guns as their cars are worth(some more).

Michael, I suspect that those who think sexual orientation is a choice, against virtually all scientific evidence and the consensus of EVERY reputable medical society, adopt this view to reflect their own feelings on the matter.

Regarding pedophilio, etc., there are no more victims in adult same-sex relationships than there are in any other kind of adult relationship, whether heterosexual, inter-religious, or inter-racial. To the contrary, stable same sex relationships enhance and fulfill the lives of individuals with same-sex orientation every bit as much as heterosexual relationships enhance the lives of heterosexual partners.

In fact, it has been the historic lack of acceptance (a lack of a structure and a lack of protection from discrimination) that has produced both dysfunctional behavior (in the form of men getting married to women but seeking sex in parks and bathrooms, suicide, depression, and serial sex partners) or escape from the rewards of sexuality and partnership altogether (in the form historically of catholic priesthood, for instance, or lonely existences. It is the broad acceptance of gays in Western Society that has produced a diminished number of candidates for the Catholic priesthood and the need to import priests from abroad.)

If it seems to you that attraction to men is perfectly possible for everyone, and that to choose to have sex with women instead is an act of decision, then this suggests to me that you personally are among those struggling with this attraction. The scientific studies tend to disagree with you.

Joel, your statement that preventing gays being married does not abridge any “equal protection” seems to me to reflect a basic ignorance on your part of the reality of the laws and ramifications surrounding the civil institution of marriage.

For instance, the majority of Americans have no wills in place, indeed are generally ignorant on the whole topic of succession. Laws on intestate inheritance are in place to prevent the wholesale chaos that would result in the absence of a the basic traffic map. By engaging in the civic, contractual act of getting married, straight couples are able instantly to sidestep the complexities of the issue, ensuring that what everyone would consider to be basic justice takes place: namely, that the grieving spouse retains the household property. Same sex couples have no such basic protection of the laws.

Tom and I, both well-educated, saw an attorney and spent a lot of money that most Americans don’t have in order to protect ourselves. Even then, while you may inherit your wife’s property or she yours in whole, Tom and I will have to pay an inheritance tax for receiving each other’s property. Those couples that are not well educated (like the majority of Americans) could easily find in a crisis, after say an extended and expensive illness, that they have no money available to pay the taxes and preserve their property.

I suspect you really have no idea what you are talking about, and simply resist the need that same sex couples have, equal to the need ALL couples have, for the protection of the laws. How Tom and I joining our families together affects you is absolutely beyond me. While you may protest otherwise, I suspect the reality is that you would resist any official act, no matter its justice or need, if as a side-effect it seemed to you to signal that, while you are entitled to your views about gays, they should not be allowed to prevail in a free society over fellow citizens whose welfare doesn’t affect you. Get a life… and get out of the way of the welfare of your fellow citizens.

Chris, please don’t promote the idea that there is “consensus” or “unanimous agreement” that the male sexual orientation is not a choice. There is no such unanimous agreement and to believe that such agreement exists is to ignore facts. As I’m sure you know, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) concluded in 1973 that homosexuality is not a deviant mental disorder. However, years later Dr. Robert Spitzer, the man responsible for convincing the APA to change it’s classification of homosexuality, publicly declared that his view in 1973 was wrong. Dr. Spitzer began to believe that homosexuality is a choice after he spoke with hundreds of ex-gay individuals.

Dr. Dean Hamer, the man who initially promoted the idea that there may be a “gay gene” conceded that “There is not a single master gene that makes people gay.” Other researchers have dismissed Hamer’s research because of the poor methodology used to come to the conclusion that there may be a gay gene.

All of this to say 1) there is not unanimous agreement that your sexual orientation is something you are born with, 2) you can change your sexual orientation, 3) the government is not unlawfully discriminating against individuals in determining who can marry and who cannot marry. The laws of marriage apply equally to all: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual etc. Sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic like race and therefore it does not qualify itself for civil rights protections.

My point on consensus or even your new term of unanimous agreement is that it just isn’t true. There are many that disagree. This is identical to the language used in the global warming err climate change crowd. It is just not how science works. Saying that everyone agrees when they don’t is primarily an indication that the argument is weak. (My last statement is a book worth of discussion that I am not about to start now).

I did a quick search:
http://www.narth.com/docs/bioresearch.html
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio301d/Topics/Gay/Text.html
(First line is the important one, “Scientists are currently uncertain as to whether homosexuality is primarily caused by environmental or genetic factors.”

My only point is that it took me 2 minutes to find scientists that are not “unanimous” or buy into the “consensus”. They may be wrong. But that destroys the consensus language.

Josh: you won’t hurt my feelings by rejecting this comment. It has been bubbling up in me over the last few days so I thought I would give this a try. If I failed to say what I am trying to say in a gentle and non-confrontational manner, please delete the comment.

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To the aspect of equal protection of homosexuals (which is the real discussion here, not whether or not homosexuality is a choice).

Just because marriage creates a default answer in defining some death benefits does not necessarily mean that others are not being offered equal protection. I understand that wills can be expensive–but they do not have to be expensive.

Your inheritance tax example is just more of a reason to eliminate such a tax more than an equal protection issue. It affects more generational relationships as well as many other situations.

I want to briefly and as gently as I can try to answer the question of how homosexual marriage effects me. I want to preface this with the fact that I am religious and my religious beliefs lead me to conclude that practicing homosexuality is sinful. At the same time, I have no right (both from a Constitutional basis as well as a religious basis) to insist that you–someone who does not share my religious beliefs–follow MY religious conviction.

I hope that makes sense. I don’t like being called “ignorant” or a “homophobe” because I am neither.

What is marriage? It is historically a particular relationship between a man and a woman. This goes back as far as recorded history goes. If you are religious, that goes back to Adam and Eve. This particular relationship has been the underpinning of pretty much every healthy society throughout history. It’s purpose includes propagation of the human race; care for each other; education; passing on values from one generation to the next. Values are passed on by both active teaching and by the examples of our lives. Others can probably add to this list.

Homosexuality is almost as old as marriage–it was common practice in Sodom from the book of Genesis. Most societies that accepted homosexuality (e.g. Greek and Roman societies) basically accepted homosexuality in addition to the more traditional marriage relationship.

So even looking to history, we do not see homosexual marriages taking the place of traditional marriages.

The other historical perspective is more recent. Homosexual unions seem to have taken a toll on traditional marriage and families in Scandinavia. I understand that there are controversies regarding the statistics, but there is no denying that children being born out of a marriage (or even union) relationship have grown significantly there after the establishment of what amount to civil unions.

There are other concerns that I have regarding homosexual unions or marriage long-term effects on society, but this will suffice for now.

My personal action on the subject would be to protect traditional marriage; eliminate inheritance taxes; and restructure the law making wills less expensive and easier to set up. In other words, eliminate the more legitimate concerns of the pro-homosexual marriage folk without changing the definition of marriage.

Basically, Joel, you really haven’t said how it affects you. Don’t blame whatever issues exist in Scandinavia on gays; the tolerance of gays is pretty much part of the their general lack of adherence (as I understand it) to any traditional forms.

In my opinion, your views on marriage are not at all sustainable. In every culture throughout history, marriage has had a very different meaning and a very different application. In some cultures in the western world, it has solely been about property rights and not at all about love, which was pursued in extracurricular format. In some cultures, partners have been selected by parents, love as no part of the equation whatsoever. In some cultures, as in the biblical cultures, it has been between man and any number of women. And in Western culture, it has been as often used to exclude children from protection as to afford it to them, for out of wedlock children had no claim on their fathers whatsoever.

Marriage is often used to unite men and women who have no business being together whatsoever, which is why so many fail. Those failures, by the way, are more frequent in evangelical households than in the household of virtually any other religious affiliation in the world. (Nothing more destroys a partnership than self-righteousness and intolerance.. it is as destructive across the dinner table as it is across societies.)

But America’s greatness is not based on the institution of marriage… it is based on religious freedom, individual liberty, and human equality.

Josh,I appreciate your comment about the topic, but going to the substance of this issue is in my opinion absolutely to the topic. Is Jon Elrod in opposing an amendment to the constitution which would eliminate its guarantees of equal protection a Republican or not? Radical or not? To say that the fundamental question is not relevant would be similar to saying that the question of slavery was irrelevant to opinions on Lincoln. Mr. Sikma launched an attack on Mr. Elrod on this blog on a charge that reflects far more negatively on the philosophies of this blog in comparison to Republican history than Mr. Elrod’s leadership, which leadership has been Lincolnian.

Decades from now the philosophies of Sikma will be viewed with the same regret as the philosophies of racist Republicans and Democrats who opposed the protections of civil rights of the African Americans. Youthful generations are by the legion rejecting the Republican Party because its rhetoric does not comport with their own views of justice. The question will be the philosophies of people like Sikma have so polluted the reputation of the Party that it is irredeemable or can the actions of people like Elrod provide enough of a record to save the Party? If the Republicans like Elrod are defined out of the Party, then the Party’s future is shame and decline.

Some of us life-long Republicans who herald from a far more noble Republican tradition of progressive civil rights refuse to let that happen. Enough free-loading has already been done by conservatives on the outstanding legacies of Lugar, Orr, Mutz, Ser Vaas, and Hudnut. Those are the names that in the modern era established the Republican control through moderate forward-looking policy. Let Rove’s southern strategy of the promotion of intolerance die on our soil, before the infection destroys any future for the Republican party among youth who today are repulsed, as alas they should be.

Incidentally, Joel, woe be America had you been in the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention or in Lincoln’s cabinet. “Not done before”… or… “We’ve always had a king”… or… “We’ve always had a state religion”… or….”we’ve always had slaves”… or…. “Women have never voted”… or… “Women can’t possibly serve in the military”… Your ability to grasp the needs of the present and the future with respect to justice, equality, and the general welfare is matchless.

The scientific studies now also show fairly persuasively that an inability to adapt to change is deeply biologic, and that those who have this biology tend to be politically conservative. While I too tend to have this biology, I recognize it as a weakness in politics as much as in business (which is bounding ahead in its recognition of partnership rights.) As such, I combat this failing in myself. Thank God it was not a weakness either of the founding fathers or of the founder of our great Party.

So, Joel, you quote the Declaration with no apparent grasp of its meaning. You seek to deny equality and impede the progress of your fellow citizens toward happiness because of your own religious views about immorality, which views themselves, inhumane, are morally reprehensible.

Christ Himself spoke not at all against gays, though he had a great deal to say about the self-righteous and their inhumanity. And when He cured on the sabbath, He caste off all biblical laws and injunctions that He felt ran contrary to humane treatment of others: “The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath.”

Your inherent moral judgment of gays is the source of your conservatism on this topic, and your refusal to ensure our humane and equal treatment as citizens in this land. The same was true in the treatment of Jews in Europe. Yours is a pure bigotry, your conservatism that of the Pharisees, not of Christ. When you say you are a conservative before being a Republican, you speak plainly. It is unfortunate that the Party has come to be home to people of such sentiments, for such sentiments are a stain upon the Party, and to the degree that they have prevailed, they inflict misery on decent citizens.

Joel, I’ve tried twice to respond to this, my work in each case lost by the spam filter somehow.

Said Jesus to the Pharisees of Marriage:

“Not all men can receive this precept [to leave father and mother and join to wife], but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and the are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.” Matthew 19:10

And of the treatment of Biblical law:

“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” Mark 2:27 To the Pharisees who insisted on applying inhumane biblical laws, he “grieved at their hardness of heart.”

In other words, use your head, Pharisee. Don’t be an idiot, think, be humane, don’t force people to do what is inappropriate for them, and, as I do, ignore biblical law when it appears to run counter to their welfare. (Or is it your position that the King of Kings was speaking words limited to a time and place and limited class of people that disappeared soon enough. Should He have been more as an attorney… writing out every last type of human being for whom you should exercise sympathy, understanding and compassion, every last biblical law that should be revised in order to ensure mankind can flourish?)

Joel, I was paraphrasing in modern vernacular Jesus’ message to the Pharisees. I do not mean to call you an idiot, nor, actually, to call you a Pharisee. (I do believe that Eric Miller is a quintessential Pharisee.)

Regarding an accusation of bigotry, I must reflect and consider. I’ll consult and post from a google of the definition:

“A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own.” - Wikipedia.

By this definition, if you are of such a strong belief about gays and sin that you would on the basis of your beliefs deny us the protections you yourself enjoy against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation, which protections we currently lack, and would seek to deny us the equal protections of the law and freedom of religion to which we are entitled by the Constitution, then in my opinion you, sir, are a bigot. If you are able to exercise restraint, then you are no more bigoted than anyone else who keeps their prejudices to themselves in public.

Or here’s the next definition:

bigot n. One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. - answers.com

The difference between social conservatives and us, Joel, is that we are not attempting to amend the Constitution to remove their guarantees or to deny them the ability to practice their own religions according to their consciences. Nor are we seeking to have them on the basis of who they are and what they believe removed from the protection legislation affords banning discrimination, although they presently enjoy this protection; on the other hand, too many social conservatives are seeking to deny this protection from being extended equally to us, their fellow tax-paying, defense-supporting, family-raising, employment providing citizens.

You can walk into any establishment of any gay owner in Indiana, and he or she legally cannot refuse to employ you on the basis of your being of a known religious perspective hostile to gays. That person’s partner, on the other hand, can throughout Indiana be terminated or refused employment for being gay with perfect legality.