West Virginia Next "Protect Marriage" Battleground

Image from Sydney Morning Herald

Last week I ran a post about the silliness of people who complain about the definitions of words. "Marriage" and "gay" are two words that have changed over time, and many right-winger/religious-type people have their garments in a twist over it. It's a smokescreen for their real agenda which is: "I think gays are icky," which is basically what any anti-gay rhetoric boils down to.

But assuming the "word definitions" argument actually had merit (big assumption), people on my side of the aisle could complain about the same thing. After all, the word "family" has been co-opted by the other side, to only include their ideal version of family. And, going a little further, you could say they're corrupting the meaning of "protect" when they say "protect marriage." Marriages themselves are not under any threat by same-sex couples. The only thing that conceivably be considered "threatened", is the legal definition. This fact is obscured by every single person arguing against same sex marriage. Everything else is a load of crap.

Which is hardly surprising. This video, arguing for a law to "protect" West Virginia marriages, is ladled with crap. For one thing, they're using religious arguments to change a law, something which should NEVER BE ALLOWED IN THIS COUNTRY. Secondly, they are flat-out lying when hey claim that "one man-one woman" is the Biblical standard definition of marriage. I remember a lot of polygamy in the "good book," don't you? And thirdly, they claim that every "civilized" society defines marriage as they do. Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and two of our states, Connecticut and Massachusetts are not civilized? Because all of those places have legal same-sex marriage.

All of this boils down to the "ick" factor as I said. Some people just cannot hear "gay" without imagining vivid same-sex couplings. I suppose some are "icked-out" by what they imagine, and some are "icked-out" by the fact that they are not "icked out!"

It's all very stupid, and makes me angry. Not just because I actually got married to my same-sex partner last year in California. These types of campaigns offend me on many other levels, starting with the fact that every single one of them relies on twisting the truth, misleading people, and often outright lying. They also rely on scare tactics, illogical slippery-slope arguments, and the hope that voters accept what they say without thinking too deeply about it. And right at the tippy-top of my outrage mountain, is the fact that invariably, the biggest fulcrum their argument tips on is religion. THEIR religion. Which again, should never, EVER be used as an argument for law in the United States of America. And don't forget the tugging at heartstrings employed by the music, the urgent narrator, and the ever present "won't someone PLEASE think of the CHILDREN???" As though there is any threat to children from two guys or two girls marrying. It's all so ridiculous.

And now, the dishonest, misleading, illogical, fear-mongering video that prompted my rant. . .



By the way, it took enormous restraint for me--a former Ohioan--to not make some sort of "Aunt Mommy/Uncle Daddy" Appalachian West Virginny joke. Oh hey, wait, I just did!