Marriage Equality and the Factually Challenged

Two different posts, one in the Huffington Post and the other in the Washington Post, underscore the idiocy and blatant ignoring of facts that are the norm among gay marriage opponents.  All of the opposition ultimately boils down to the Christofascists' obsession with sex and the goal of ideally banning all sexual activity except between heterosexual couples in their child bearing years. And even then, the couple best not enjoy the intimacy or engage in it for any reason other than to procreate children.  Otherwise, in the view of the fathers of the Catholic Church's "natural law" theory devised in the 12th century, they will be guilty of fornication.  The piece in the Huffington Post looks at the lies - there really is no other term for it - of those who claim that same sex marriage harms families/children.  The one in the Washington Post looks at how the Christofascist arguments - if they were to succeed threaten the marriages of some heterosexuals.  First, these highlights from the HuffPo piece:

Anti-gay campaigner John Eastman, Chair of the hateful National Organization for (sic) Marriage, says: "We keep making the argument of the importance of marriage, that it takes a man and a woman to make a child and that the state can't continue to redefine that if civilization's policy goal is to support families rather than water down marriage to be about any adult relationship. These judges keep saying that's not what marriage is. Based on what? It's like we're in Stalinist Russia." The mere fact that Eastman could say something so absurd is evidence that we are NOT "in Stalinist Russia."

It is useful to remember what happened there. You might remember things such as the massive string of Siberian concentration camps. Secret police would round people up to be convicted without evidence and denied any kind of reasonable defense. There was genocide in the form of a planned famine against Ukraine. Stalin invaded the Baltic States and began a campaign against Jews there. Millions were imprisoned, starved or executed; free speech was impossible, and political opposition banned. 

Eastman confuses losing a legal argument with not being allowed to make one. Given how NOM-types have been cheering anti-gay repression by Stalin Jr., Vladimir Putin, it is a bit hypocritical to whine about being victims of a Stalinist legal system.

The reality is that civilization has had many different policies regarding marriage and the purpose of marriage has continually changed. There was no one goal, but rather many goals.The Apostle Paul's view of marriage was it was inferior to celibacy, justified only if individuals were unable to resist evil sex. "NOW concerning the thing whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband..

The goal of marriage was legitimizing sex, of which children might be a consequence. It wasn't a pro-family inspiration, however; it was an anti-sexual one. John Witte Jr. noted that Paul's anti-sexual views became more and more widespread so that the "late Church Fathers... revealed an increasing preference for virginity, celibacy, and monastic chastity -- sometimes pressing their preference to the point of outright opposition to intercourse and even to marriage itself.

Eastman has argued same-sex marriage somehow undermines support for families and will "water down marriage." Eastman and his fellow campaigners never explain the magical process by which this takes place. How does preventing gay parents -- who are raising a family -- from marrying, "support families?" Do the means -- banning marriage -- lead to the goal of protecting families?

What does Eastman mean by families? Are older childless couples a family or not? Do young couples only become a "family" after giving birth? If the prime purpose of marriage is having children then many marriages are NOT legitimate marriages. Couples unable to have children, due to medical reasons or age, are not married. Some would argue it is Eastman who is changing marriage.

Eastman's comparison of the judicial system to "Stalin's Russia" is almost as ludicrous as the legal arguments he uses. NOM is factually challenged, in that they twist facts or just make them up to serve their ends.

Eastman argued the reason he is losing isn't because he's full of crap, but because a cadre of "activist political judges" are ruling against him. He claims Democrats appointed these judges, "This is just raw politics." Sadly for him, however, he is once again making up facts. Reporter Steve Friess notes, "just seven of the 22 federal judges who have ruled in the various cases since Windsor were appointees of Democrat presidents;" Republicans appointed the rest.   Nor should we forget that a Reagan appointee decided the Prop 8 case and Justice Anthony Kennedy, another Reagan appointee, wrote the Windsor decision. 

As I say so often, no one lies more - other than perhaps Vladimir Putin - than  the Christofascists.  The piece in the Washington Post picks up on the danger the Christofascists pose to many heterosexual marriages:

Why does this upset me so? Well, you see, I got married two years ago, a few days shy of my 60th birthday. My friends (and new husband) tell me I still look super awesome, and I can still do a pretty good downward dog. But the inescapable fact is that — under normal circumstances (more about that later) — I am way past reproductive age. I have the hot flashes to prove it. If, as Niemeyer says, the whole point of marriage is not the mere parenting of kids but actual biological reproduction, it is clear to me that he believes that my marriage is invalid. To opponents of gay marriage, marriage is all about breeding. Since my breeding days are over, it looks like, marriage-wise, I should be, too.

And it isn’t just Virginia. Kentucky used the same argument. So did Georgia. And Texas. This argument is surely going all the way to the Supreme Court.

Think of the implications of this, ladies. . . . . Marriage is thus not about friendship. Not commitment. Not companionship. Not even tax breaks. Just procreation. And love? I love my husband. I’m pretty sure he loves me. But according to the state of Virginia, without childbirth, what’s love got to do with it? Virginia has no interest in “licensing adults’ love,” Niemeyer quotes.