Sanctity of Marriage:This is not new, but it still makes a hell of a lot

[BrklynLiberal]

of sense.

Monday, December 08, 2003

The Sanctity of Marriage

We like LiberalsLikeChrist.org!

This is the perfect introduction to my next entry -- the first installment of the little project I promised you yesterday.

I'm glad a straight guy wrote it, because I know, from experience, that the words of straight people carry a lot more weight with other straight people. (Hey, it's true.)
Besides, he says it so well:

The Threat to Sanctity of Marriage Is Heterosexual

The president vowed to "do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage." He did not explain precisely how gays and lesbians are attacking the sanctity of marriage with their wish to be bound by it.
In fact, same-sex marriages are not likely to have any impact on the sanctity of the president's marriage or my marriage or any other heterosexual's marriage. My wife and I would still be married and so would the president and the first lady.
If anyone is undermining the sanctity of marriage these days, it's my fellow heterosexuals. Look at our statistics: Somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce. More than half of births to women under age 25 are out of wedlock. We make light of the institution with quicky Las Vegas marriages, quicky divorces and weird catch-a-man shows like "The Bachelor" that elevate gold digging almost to an Olympic sport.
Yes, Rick Whatshisname and Darva Conger (the pair that started it all) can meet and marry within 45 minutes of first laying eyes on one another, admit it's all a sham, and, without so much as consummating their unholy union, get lots of publicity and money for splitting up -- but I can't marry the woman I've been building a life with for the past three and a half years.
Which reminds me of a great little quote I saved from a visitor to GayToday.com not too long ago:
No one has even suggested a law that would prevent someone who was convicted of murdering his or her spouse from marrying again. (Even while imprisoned!) No one is campaigning for barring new marriage licenses for deadbeat dads. Most tellingly, there is no outcry that it's legal for pedophiles to marry, and if that's not an assault on the sanctity of marriage, nothing is. So where are the "defenders?"

David Paquette
Rhode Island


Speaking of murder, Richard Ramirez comes to mind. You know, California's "Night Stalker" -- the self-proclaimed satanist who raped and murdered a whole bunch of folks, from kids all the way up to grandmas sleeping in bed, and then drank their blood. He got married on Death Row* a few years back. It was his right.

But it's not my right. The only thing on my record is a traffic ticket from 1990. (Oops, my bad -- it's not on my record. I went to traffic school and got it dismissed. Beyond that, I don't have any sort of record. But I guess that's not enough to qualify me for marriage.)

Back to Clarence Page:

But we don't punish heterosexuals for debasing the sanctity of marriage. Instead, legislators have responded to the public's will by making it easier to get no-fault divorces and harder to prosecute cheaters for adultery. Despite stalwart efforts by some to reverse that tide, the tide has not turned.

Clarence Page

The Threat to Sanctity of Marriage Is Heterosexual

Newsday

December 5, 2003

It's been said many a time that if "saving" heterosexual marriage were such a priority, divorce would be outlawed.

Read the rest of Page's op/ed when you get a chance.

Now, let's really talk about the "sanctity of marriage"... Republican-style.

* Not that there's anything unusual about murderers, rapists, and the like getting married in prison.

Off the top of my head:

Erik and Lyle Menendez (who blew away their rich parents with dual shotgun blasts) both did it.

Charles Manson Family member Tex Watson (the one who told Sharon Tate, "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business") was not only married in prison, but has fathered four children since he's been on the inside.

Incidentally, if Tex were entering the prison system in many states today, he wouldn't be allowed to have conjugal visits -- but he could still get married! Which kinda blows to hell the argument that marriage between a man and a woman is all about procreation, doesn't it?

Susan Atkins (the Manson Girl who actually stabbed Sharon Tate to death, and considered cutting out Sharon's eight-month fetus) has been married in prison -- not once, but twice.

Angelo Buono, who with his cousin Kenneth Bianchi, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and dumped the corpses of two dozen or more women near L.A. freeway hillsides (making them the "Hillside Stranglers"), bragged about raping and sodomizing girls when he was just 14, was married at least three times and fathered at least six children -- all of whom he abused, either physically, sexually, or both -- and sexually abused the 14-year-old daughter of a live-in lover (who, in Buono's words, needed "breaking in"), long before he and Kenny started their murder spree. And yet he was allowed to marry in prison.

Even grandmother Karla Faye Tucker (whom then-Texas governor George W. Bush mocked cruelly after refusing her a stay of execution) did it.

And so did Ted Bundy (who has no connection to G.W. Bush, save for the fact that the serial killer and the resident-in-chief shared an eerie resemblance), convicted of 36 murders (although the true total may be as high as 100).

And I still don't have the right to get married?

I guess owning a vagina is a worse crime than wholesale slaughter.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002551/2003/12/08.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I always figured

that letting gay couples marry would decrease the divorce rate, because I doubt if half of gays would decide to divorce--though this may be wrong, I'd believe that finally getting the right to wed would make that right more precious to them.

[xchrom]

2. well -- i don't know about the vagina part

cause i can't get married either.

have been attacked several times and at gun point twice, abducted and once -- and i'm a gay male.

[HockeyMom]

3. A CONTRACT

A civil marriage license is a CONTRACT. It is neither sacred, holy or above all not a sacrament. Since when did county clerks become CLERGY? When you take out a mortgage and sign that CONTRACT, is that sacred, holy or a sacrament too? WHY is a marriage contract any different than a mortgage contract?