Why Gay Marriage is Bad

Vermont recently overrode Governor Douglas' veto of same sex marriages.

I'd like to point out that an outstanding majority of people opposed to same sex marriage are very religious and many see it as redefining a sacred institution. A sacred, religious institution that is deeply embedded with rights granted through government. Many religious people also ignore and deny the separation of church and state which was reiterated in a series of court hearings such as Reynolds versus the United States and McCollum versus the Board of Education. I've also read arguments that identified Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Church as not bringing about the separation of church and state, which when read is clearly outlining the separation. He write's: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State," (Jefferson). It can be understood in the establishment clause of the United States Constitution found here that it was purposeful to separate the two and with a glance back at history should be maintained. This separation has given our country a lot of power to enable everyone to gain the rights that were left to be fought for by minorities overlooked when establishing themselves in a country of equality. As there are a lot of different arguments, I think that it is safe to say religion should be left to the individual, their God and their Church, not to oppress other peoples right to marry. The stigma in society of homosexuality was brought about by religion. If you look into the history of Ancient Greece you will see that homosexuality was an accepted practice until it was outlawed in Rome when Christianity gained power.

It is also believed that same sex marriage is bad for children and would be harmful taking away their right to a mom and a dad. In a society that is full of children without any parents at all, this seems ridiculous. Artificial insemination is also looked down upon for women in a committed relationship with another woman. How is giving a child life and being raised by two women bad? They never would have been given life if they hadn't been artificially inseminated. It is only an expectation of our society that a child should be granted a mom and a dad, even when divorce rates are high. So many children in this world would love to have two parents or even a single parent. If you google "same sex parenting" you will find little evidence that there is a harmful effect on children from having same sex parents. In return, you will find studies that show that same sex parents are just as good as heterosexual parents.

Last night aired the pageant competition, Miss USA, in which one of the contestants, Miss California, said that she believed that marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman, not same sex. In return she has been faced with a lot of negative attention. Past Miss USA winners have even come forward advocating for same sex marriage. I think that this shows that our society is making a turn around. This issue has had a lot of attention in recent political and social spheres. When religious and sacred meaning is taken out of the picture people realize that homosexuality and same sex marriage is not an evil curse on society.

When it comes to the argument of letting "the people" decide on same sex marriage I would like to put forth this from The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe. "Democracy, liberals of this persuasion believe, is a wonderful form of government, but when it comes to protecting the rights of religious minorities or nonbelievers, a nondemocratic institution like the courts is required to keep it in check," (257 Wolfe). A mixed constitution of the many, the one and the few creates a balance of power. This is why we have a mixture of types of governments, a democracy (legislative), a monarchy (president), and an aristocracy (judiciary). They keep each other in check and protect the rights of the minorities.

North Dakota.... Again?

I'm not sure if you all remember. A few weeks ago I posted an informal post about North Dakota making it illegal to have an abortion. Well, again North Dakota has taken a few steps backwards. As Vermont has moved forward with same-sex marriages something that may seem completely ridiculous to us has happened. A policy to end discrimination in housing, employment and credit based on sexual orientation was put forth to the North Dakota House losing 54-34. I think it is absolutely shameful. I don't see how any policy on any person to end discrimination could be rejected. We are supposed to be an equal nation yet we say it's okay to discriminate people if we're not comfortable with their sexual orientation.

I would like to see a policy put forth federally to end discrimination against sexual orientation. If we are truly a free nation we need to protect everyone.

GOVERNMENT

I was really intrigued by the historical scale that was developed by Polybius. In today's government we see three prominent types of government working together to create our nation, we are not solely a democracy. Our democracy stems from the Legislative branch in which we have the good rule of many whom we elect. The President can be seen as a Monarch but again we elect him but we don't give him all the power. The Aristocracy can be seen in the Judiciary branch of government. They all work together to function as best it can without developing an oligarchy, tyrant or mob.

I was researching trying to find a children or young adult game that brings any one of the government forms into play. I came across a very interesting game called Civilization IV. "Indeed, while Civ IV deserves praise for integrating non-material elements like religion and culture into the game play, in the end these pieces suffer the same fate as the rest of the game's components. Civ IV, ultimately, is less about the development of civilization than it is about the expansion of imperial tyranny,"(Ballor). I think that games like this are educational but it's also rated E for everyone. I don't think that little kids should be playing games like this, they tend to have the disadvantage of having the power go to their head. I remember growing up my little brother started playing a karate video game and then started running around the house kicking everyone for about a week until my mom finally took the game away.

The idea of manipulating a society by means of religion, culture, money and economy sounds fascinating. It would be really cool if you could choose and manipulate the types of government played in the game. Having one ruler makes the game controller be either a tyrant or a monarch, I think that they would inevitably become a tyrant since the game is all about war and conquering land.


Ballor, Jordan J. "Power and Tyranny in Civilization IV." Home @ Blogcritics.org. 07 July 2008. .

Outlawing Abortion

I was reading some headlines today and I came across one that really stuck out. A few weeks ago we were talking about abortion and what the qualifications are to abort a fetus. Whether or not abortion is morally and ethically right or wrong has been a controversial issue for quite some time. Here's an article that I hope everyone finds interesting:

"North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion. The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person. That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder. Minot Republican Dan Ruby has sponsored other bills banning abortion in previous legislative sessions - all of which failed. He also sponsored today's bill and says it is compatible with Roe versus Wade - the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion. (Rep. Dan Ruby, -R- Minot) "This is the exact language that's required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that's what this does." VO CONTINUES But Minot Democrat Kari Conrad says the bill will land North Dakota in court, trying to defend the constitutionality of a law that goes against the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. (Rep. Kari Conrad, -D- Minot) "People who presented this bill, were very clear that they intended to challenge Roe versus Wade. So they intend to put the state of North Dakota into court defending Roe vs. Wade"."

I think this is a very important matter that fits directly into our discussion. Like it says in the article, they are declaring when life begins. I think this is outrageous and unconstitutional because it goes against the supreme court decision that has already legalized abortion.

You can view the news video here.

"ND House Passes Abortion Ban." Minot News, Weather, Sports and Entertainment. 17 Feb. 2009. KXTV. .

Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha

I find it interesting that it hasn’t even been a month since the Obama’s have been in office and the major corporations are already trying to make bank off of their historic achievement. Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia are dolls created by Ty, the makers of beanie babies. They came out right before the inauguration. The company has denied that they are actually based off of the children of President Barack Obama. Alan Duke wrote an article for CNN, Ty denies Obama girls inspired Sweet Sasha, Marvelous Malia. The press secretary for Michelle Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld said, “"We feel it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” (Duke).

I feel like this coincides with our discussion in class last week on sacred and profane objects. The dolls have gone from being seemingly meaningless dolls to important historic and attention oriented dolls. If the Obama’s weren’t in office we would not have even heard of these dolls. It is just too much of a coincidence that the two dolls, the only African American dolls in their collection for 30, would have the same names as the President’s daughters. The company is making profit off of the innocence of two young children who have been thrown into the spotlight.

If it was a contest that had won a few lucky kids the opportunity to have dolls created for them this would be a totally different story. Michelle Obama may have even signed off a consent form to have the dolls made if Ty had asked. In many cases this could have been a kind of flattery for the family but Ty never consulted with the White House and has consistently denied that the dolls were inspired by Sasha and Malia Obama."Information concerning the development of our products and how we come up with names, how we select them, how we trademark -- that's considered as proprietary. I can't go any further with that question. Sasha and Malia are beautiful names" that "worked very well with the dolls we were making," said Senior Vice President of Sales for Ty, Tania Lundeen (Duke).


Duke, Alan. "Ty denies Obama girls inspired Sweet Sasha, Marvelous Malia - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 23 Jan. 2009.
.

Kingdom Coming

I recently came across a book that, upon review, seemed to fit into the subject matter of the Secular and the Sacred. It is called Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. A good summary of the book I found is:
"A cautionary account of growing religious radicalism in America warns of the potential dangers of a doctrine through which Christians believe they have a right to rule non-Christians, identifying political practices that aggressively promote conservative agendas."
On Amazon.com there are 86 reviews of this book, clearly a popular and controversial book. A great review I found from Publishers WeeklyStarred Review said:

"In an impressive piece of lucid journalism, Salon.com reporter Goldberg dives into the religious right and sorts out the history and networks of what to most liberals is an inscrutable parallel universe. She deconstructs "dominion theology," the prevalent evangelical assertion that Christians have a "responsibility to take over every aspect of society." Goldberg makes no attempt to hide her own partisanship, calling herself a "secular Jew and ardent urbanite" who wrote the book because she "was terrified by America's increasing hostility to... cosmopolitan values." This carefully researched and riveting treatise will hardly allay its audience's fears, however; secular liberals and mainstream believers alike will find Goldberg's descriptions of today's culture wars deeply disturbing. She traces the deep financial and ideological ties between fundamentalist Christians and the Republican Party, and discloses the dangers she believes are inherent to the Bush administration's faith-based social services initiative. Other chapters follow inflammatory political tactics on wedge issues like gay rights, evolution and sex education. Significantly, her conclusions do not come off as hysterical or shrill. Even while pointing to stark parallels between fascism and the language of the religious right, Goldberg's vision of America's future is measured and realistic. Her book is a potent wake up call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists." (May 15) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I'm going to read this book and write my own review of it and how it relates to our class for my formal blog post.