Is Gay Marriage a Moral Issue or a Civil Liberti Issue? - Pt. 1

Contents:

• GAY, STRAIGHT, BLACK, WHE, MARRIAGE IS AN EQUAL RIGHT
• “GAY, STRAIGHT, BLACK OR WHITE-MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHT!”
• IS GAY MARRIAGE A MORAL ISSUE OR A CIVIL LIBERTI ISSUE? - PT. 1
• IS GAY MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHT?
• GAY MARRIAGE: A CIVIL RIGHT
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

GAY, STRAIGHT, BLACK, WHE, MARRIAGE IS AN EQUAL RIGHT

Hodg cisn wouldn't be hand down for nearly two months; on this day, the jtic were hearg the platiffs were attemptg to tablish the right of same-sex upl to marry Kentucky, Michigan, Tennsee and Oh; the marriage-equaly activists who surround me were hopg the jtic would e the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protectn Clse not to jt affirm a right to marriage all fifty stat but also to create a feral precent unr which any number of other rights for LGBT people might be argued for the ClarkDpe the prence of a vol antigay aln—prised of Wtboro Baptist churchgoers, whe supremacists, and a group of Hasidic Jews, all of whom seemed largely foced on the timate tails of anal sex— was, for the most part, a joyo atmosphere.

“GAY, STRAIGHT, BLACK OR WHITE-MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHT!”

The 1969 Stonewall rts brought the wildly multicultural groups out om behd closed doors and to public view as Lata transgenr activists and whe gay men and drag queens band together to fight for gay liberatn.

Simultaneoly, the marriage-equaly movement began peelg off rich, middle-class, and gentrified gays and aligng them wh the lg class—a straight whe majory who not long before persecuted people of lor and queers alike. The scholar Lisa Duggan scrib such absorptn as homonormativy, "a polics that do not ntt domant heteronormative assumptns and stutns"—such as marriage and s ll for monogamy and reproductn—"but upholds and stas them while promisg the possibily of a mobilized gay nstuency and a privatized, policized gay culture anchored domticy and nsumptn. As queer wrer Matt Comer poted out 2014, there was no shortage of gay people who "nmn the rtg the aftermath of extreme misrriag of jtice for black people, all the while ignorg the fact they gather once a year to openly celebrate and memorate a rt"—the three-night-long Stonewall rts—the "vlent outburst that served as the so-lled birth of their movement.

The backlash began the nservative margs of the natn: The sprg of 2015 brought a challenge to gay rights Arkansas the form of a state Senate bill that, if passed, would prevent municipal-level modifitns to the state's civil-rights laws, which do not specifilly protect the LGBT muny. This should have been—but was not—a wake-up ll to natnal gay-rights anizatns that their opponents had found a new method of attack and would be ployg all over the untry: Indiana next, and then North Carola, Mississippi, andthe eleven stat and untg whose cizens have lost their mds over bathroom e by trans did the Human Rights Campaign do so ltle to bat such legislatn until after passed? Yet bee those sufferg are disenanchised, the gay muny has not addrsed the crisis wh an ta of the real backlash massacre at Pulse Orlando, as wh so much vlence that befalls the LGBT muny this untry, overwhelmgly harmed queer people of lor—some nety percent of the victims were Lato.

IS GAY MARRIAGE A MORAL ISSUE OR A CIVIL LIBERTI ISSUE? - PT. 1

It was certaly not the flt of the queer people displayg affectn Mateen may have seen Miami, spe his father's claim that their behavr ma the gunman shootg stck fear to the hearts of gays across Ameri.

Perhaps now there will be an urgent ll to addrs the many ways vlence harms parts of the LGBT muny, and a renewed mment not to rt on the lrels of marriage equaly but to attempt to undo NEW FACES OF LGBT RIGHTThe once-domant force of gay polics—formal anizatns loted fancy buildgs Washgton, D. In Atlanta, Charl Stephens of the Counter Narrative Project looks to munite both why racism is not tangential to homophobia but fact tegral to the stori we tell about , and the way mak HIV transmissns more likely.

On March 11th the Massachetts State Legislature voted favor of a nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage and on the same day, the California supreme urt orred officials San Francis who had been issug marriage licens to same sex upl, to stop immediately.

IS GAY MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHT?

For lots of workg class upl, marriage is an stutn necsary to survival bee of the nant enomic benefs and so nial of this to gay and lbian upl turns this to an issue much bigger than jt eedom to marry whomsoever one choos. Come to a panel discsn, The Fight for Gay Marriage: Separate is not Equal, sponsored by the Progrsive Party, the Peace and Jtice Center, the Green Party, the Internatnal Socialist Organizatn, and the Amerin Friends Service Commtee on March 31st at 7. The polls make clear that younger evangelils support gay marriage larger numbers than their elrs, but the exact number of supporters is still opn on same sex marriage and unns the Uned Stat th reveals a great al of change a short perd of time and signifint regnal dispary.

S., many supporters of same sex unns believe that the most accurate way to discs support for same sex unns the Uned Stat is on a state-by-state or regn-to-regn Keller, a natnally regnized pastor New York Cy explaed that "you n believe homosexualy is a s and still believe that same-sex marriage should be legal. Articl on changg attus among GOP youth illtrate the move toward separatg ernment-sanctned marriage and church-sanctned experience at Harvard wh the gay munyIn the sprg of 2011 I was part of a group of ten speakers at a nference at Harvard Universy. We still held our beliefs about what the Bible says about beg gay, but we uld have a healthy discsn about and love them as people ma the image of God servg the ncln of our time the profsor that morated our discsn turned to the gay activists and said, "Gentlemen, I have jt gone through the entire nference and never heard one negative ment about gays.

GAY MARRIAGE: A CIVIL RIGHT

To classify their behavr as sful is very different than classifyg as the way I was hung out wh sners, even homosexualsWhile J was havg dner at Matthew's hoe, many gays and sners me and ate wh him and his discipl (Matthew 9:9, 10). The alternative perspective -- adopted by most gay rights advot -- views marriage as a relatnship between two people wh emotnal and practil functns distct om theori of marriageThe tradnalist perspective domated ias of marriage all societi studied by anthropologists, and throughout rerd history. Of urse, many societi regnized homosexual unns havg other functns such as ary apprentichips among the Spartans, or domtic operatn and child re amongst Native Amerins where a widower married another (transgenr) man, or Two-Spir havg both mascule and feme tras, who then took re of his children.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

On the other hand, nservativ do not view such unns as equivalent to marriage bee they are unns between dividuals as opposed to the tradnalist arrangement for raisg distctn may be logilly valid but nnot hold back gay marriage.

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Foc on the Fay morate their views, a hard re of smaller groups, most of them religly motivated, have ntued to pump out monizg propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual mori.

The book mak a seri of claims that virtually no ser historian agre wh: that Hler was gay, that “the Nazi Party was entirely ntrolled by aristic homosexuals, ” and that gays were pecially selected for the SS bee of their nate btaly. Takg a page om the anti-gay fabulist Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), Fischer claimed a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexualy gave Adolph Hler, and homosexuals the ary gave the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war mache and 6 ln ad Jews. In a 2010 “actn alert, ” the AFA warned that if homosexuals are allowed to openly serve the ary, “your son or dghter may be forced to share ary showers and barracks wh active and open homosexuals.

Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy (AFTAH) was formed as a part-time venture 1996 by long-time gay-basher Peter LaBarbera, who reanized 2006 as a much more ser and fluential, if often vic, operatn. A one-time reporter for the nservative Washgton Tim, LaBarbera has been an energetic mpaigner agast “the radil homosexual agenda” sce at least 1993, when he lnched The Lambda Report, which claimed to do first-hand reportg to expose s gay enemi. AFTAH is notable for s postg of the utterly discreded work of Pl Cameron (of the Fay Rearch Instute; see below), who has claimed that gays and lbians live vastly shorter liv than heterosexuals.