August 09, 2011

God's Design for Discrimination

In case you've forgotten over the summer, Minnesota will have a "reserve civil marriage for straight people only" amendment on the ballot in 2012. The campaign has now started, since the Minnesota Patriarchy Council has put out a call for volunteers. There's a bunch of rigamarole in their letter about "unaccountable judges" (in a state with judicial elections) and outside money (because none of the money they're raising will come from out of state) that you can read for yourself, but much of it is about religion.

Their letter, however, demonstrates once again that the only argument (aside from an uneasy excitement over the details of gay sex) for denying all consenting, adult couples the right to marry is religious.

In November 2012 a measure will appear on Minnesota’s ballot to place the traditional and biblical definition of marriage – one man and one woman – into our state constitution.

Well, that's one way the bible defines marriage, but it's hardly the only.

As you no doubt know, Minnesota Family Council has been working for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity since 2004 – and your prayers and financial support helped make it happen.

Mostly the financial support--and the polls that have shown that more Minnesotans are coming to support marriage equality all the time. Better get this done right quick before more people have gay friends.

Now we have to get the amendment passed. To help make this happen we have become part of a broad coalition of leaders who are assembling the campaign to ensure this amendment passes, and I am writing to ask you to join our coalition as a volunteer. The coalition is called Minnesota for Marriage and includes Minnesota Family Council, Minnesota Catholic Conference, and National Organization for Marriage to name a few.

This is a coalition, yes. Broad, it is not. It's a bunch of religious organizations. Where is any secular group claiming marriage equality would create any ills in this lifetime?

Even though this campaign promises to be a great struggle, we are very confident of victory – if we receive your help and that of thousands of other Minnesotans who believe in God’s design for marriage. With your support, we will help the voters of our state see the timeless institution of one man-one woman marriage as the foundation on which our society is built and the best environment for producing and raising children.

Timeless, huh? Like those polygynous marriages in Exodus?

While death and divorce too often prevent it, children do best when raised by their mother and father in a low-conflict marriage.

We know how well they pay attention to these studies.

We want to give every child in Minnesota the best opportunity for success.

Except the children of gay couples. They're perfectly happy to deny those children the advantages of having parents who are married.

Whatever one may think of so-called same-sex “marriage,” every gay “marriage” intentionally deprives a child of either a mother or a father.

Setting aside the gender essentialism involved in skipping over the fact that another mother or father is added--"intentionally deprives"? Uh-huh. Where do these kids come from? If it's divorce, they've got another (hopefully) involved parent. If it's adoption, they didn't have any to start with. If it's an egg or sperm donor, that donor is also sometimes involved in raising the child and sometimes simply not interested in raising that child--or they wouldn't have donated. In any situation, marriage equality adds a parent the child didn't have before. What child loses by that?

For our campaign to be successful, however, we need people of faith to rise up, speak, and participate in the campaign.

Prayers won't cut it here, either.

We know that when people of faith who support marriage stand together and participate in the kind of grassroots activities we have outlined, our campaign for traditional marriage will succeed.

Because the only people agitating against marriage equality are the ones who think their god has called upon them to discriminate.

God is the author of marriage, and our campaign will fight to preserve His vision of marriage as the union of one man and one woman for the benefit of families, children and all of society, and for His glory. Please join me in becoming a supporter of the marriage amendment today!

Yeah, no. I'm still pissed about the wedding I didn't get to go to because it had to be held in Iowa. I'm cheering for the best man at my wedding, who is in the process of adopting one of those kids without any supportive parents. And I don't think the appropriate place for constitutional amendments or religion is in denying people equal rights. Even if religion is really good at it.

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