Thursday, March 1, 2012

No one is "redefining marriage"

Laurel Ramseyer:
[L]aws permitting civil marriage for same-sex couples don’t redefine civil marriage. What those laws do is extend access to civil marriage to couples of the same sex. 
In a similar vein Anne Levinson, who is coordinating the challenge to the Washington Attorney General’s proposed ballot title for Referendum 74 has said, “laws that eliminate bans on inter-racial marriage and laws that eliminate bans on marriage for same-sex couples don’t redefine marriage. What these laws do is extend the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage to couples who were previously denied marriage licenses by their government. The meaning of marriage remains unchanged. The marriage laws themselves remain unchanged. The responsibilities and rights of married couples remain unchanged. Nobody’s civil marriage is in any way redefined, nor is the meaning of marriage changed or the clergy’s complete religious freedom to perform or celebrate or not perform or celebrate any marriage in accordance with their beliefs.” 

The catchphrase “redefine marriage” is a dodge from the real discussion at hand: permitting same-sex couples access to civil marriage.
As she notes, we didn't consider voting "redefined" when we allowed black men (1870) or women (19120) to vote.  We didn't consider marriage "redefined" when we eliminated anti-miscegenation laws.  Extending rights to all is not a "redefinition".  Call them out on this!



1 comment:

JCF said...

It's not redefining marriage...

...but it IS redefining culture. A culture which says that LGBTs are the Perverse&Disgusting Other (Beneath).

The Pro-H8 people are the last gasp of a culture that says "No matter anything else, we'll ALWAYS have Those F@gs & Lesb*s & He-Shes to look (spit) down on."

Losing this "trash" beneath their feet is a big loss to some (as losing blacks as the Other Beneath was a loss to the crackers).