"Fed up? Who, me?
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| Home Front: Politix |
| Court Gives Election to Bush |
| 2004-11-04 |
| "The example of such a small system as a butterfly being responsible for creating such a large and distant system as a tornado in Texas illustrates the impossibility of making predictions for complex systems; despite the fact that these are determined by underlying conditions, precisely what those conditions are can never be sufficiently articulated to allow long-range predictions." -- The Butterfly Effect Once again, it appears that a Supreme Court ruling gave the election to George Bush. In this case, it was the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which issued a ruling that Massachusetts’ failure to recognize gay marriage was unconstitutional. People who want to sound smugly knowledgable about chaos theory will tell the story of a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a storm. In the 2004 election, that butterfly was the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Their ruling on gay marriage stoked fears among religious conservatives. This inflated the religious conservative vote, helping President Bush and hurting the candidate from Massachusetts. I interpret the election returns not as a mandate for America’s tough stand on terror or for privatizing Social Security. This election was a rebuke to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. If they had not out-ed the gay marriage issue, then the result of the election, for better or worse, would have been different. The exit polls, which if anything may have undersampled Bush voters, showed that one of the top issues among voters was "moral values," with Bush gaining an overwhelming majority of the "moral values" voters. In my pre-election essay, I despaired of what I called President Bush’s decision to run as a Bible-thumping moral legislator. It’s a good thing for Republicans that I wasn’t their chief electoral strategist. Although I take a liberal attitude toward gay marriage, I do believe that the Massachusetts Supreme Court need not have found a right to gay marriage in that state’s Constitution. The Democratic Party reaped the whirlwind from that exercise in judicial activism. As I indicated in my pre-election essay, my hope has been that younger voters would influence the two major parties in a libertarian direction. To me, this means pulling the Democrats away from statist economic policies and pulling Republicans away from trying to legislate morality (like most libertarians, I have nothing against morality per se.) Even though I voted for the winner in the Presidential race, I am not smug that my views prevailed in the election. On the contrary, I share with my Democratic friends the sense of being humbled by an expression of public opinion that is much at variance with my own. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #16 "Fed up? Who, me? |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-11-04 7:34:35 PM |
| #15 JFM, if you really think marriage is about raising the children, you'd do better to put your efforts into curtailing single parenthood and divorce, not preventing people who will never have children from marrying. Secondly, I don't believe that arguing that tax rates are too low because some people are wealthier is going to win you many friends 'round these here parts. And lastly, if you really think that we are to allow people extra privileges to support their creation of future citizens, then I want a damn sight more quality control. In other words: licenses to breed. I (well, not I alone, of course) want to decide who gets to have kids, and who doesn't. (I don't, of course, want that. But it always ticks me off when people tell me they're doing their civic duty by reproducing. If so, society ought to have more input into who gets to do it, and how, don't you think? No, they never do.) |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-11-04 5:51:12 PM |
| #14 I have to take issue with the idea that gay marriage got people out in droves for Bush. I have a post up on my blog showing the percentage of voters for Bush, and for the same-sex marriage bans in 11 states. In all cases but two, the numbers voting for the bans was much higher than those voting for Bush. This must mean that many Kerry supporters also voted to ban gay marriage. I think this undercuts the idea that Bush's support was overwhelmingly from Christian conservatives. Furthermore, since the lowest percentage of passage of all the bans was 57% (in liberal Oregon), and tended to hover around 66%, then any notion that opponents of gay marriage are the right wing "fringe" is absurd. People (like me) who are against the bans are the fringe. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-11-04 5:44:13 PM |
| #13 Sock Pupppet of Doom I will tell you the one reason there is a thing called marriage: children. It is in the interest of society to encourage their conception and later them becoming "profitable men". In the average when people have more children when they have some guarantees about not being let down wile pregnant by their partner or that the fruit of their efforts will no go to the children of another person. And children raised by a single parent have a higher probability of falling into crime, faring badly in life. That is why society goes through the cost of mantaining a legal system around marriage and gibing tax cuts to married couples: more and better children. If gays want to have sex together it is THEIR problem, if they want to have PRIVATE meetings where they exchange vows and are handled a piece of paper with their names on it, it is THEIR problem. But marriage has a cost and I see no reason to accept have my taxes raised for funding a form of marriage who would give me _zero_ benefits be it direct or indirect, present or future (in the form of children who will keep the society running when I will be old). In fact, if any, the differential in taxes is far too low given that single persons or childless couples fare better financially than married people with children. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-11-04 3:20:53 PM |
| #12 fair tax rates to gays who enter into a "contract." In other words: pay their marriage penalty like anyone else? |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-11-04 11:34:15 AM |
| #11 They have some stranger customs, Bulldog... |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-11-04 10:46:58 AM |
| #10 What about the demonic undead? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-04 10:30:28 AM |
| #9 By that argument, heterosexual atheists could never marry. Nor the religious unchurched, either. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-11-04 10:26:53 AM |
| #8 The state shouldn't encourage or discourage most private acts that don't harm others, encourage death, slavery or mutilation. Sorry I am not a puritan by any means. It's a sacrament in my cult and was in my prior organized religion (same one Bush is) Gay ordiantion and just talking about gay marriage was one of the reasons I left. The state should stay out of it. A civil union doesn't equal a marriage. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-04 8:17:40 AM |
| #7 SPOD, The Puritans did not believe matrimony was a sacrament and early Americans did not wed in the church. Some churches today do not include matrimony as a sacrament. The primary purpose of marriage is to establish lines for inheritance of property. This is now a state issue not a church one. Matrimony provides benefits from the state to reward and thus encourage certain patterns of behavior. The debate over gay matrimony is over exactly the question of whether the state should encourage such behavior. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-04 8:07:49 AM |
| #6 Marriage is ordained from God as a union between man and woman the old testament teaches. But I am all for keeping the state out of religion. If the state and society want to add to that fine but the marrying part is a religious thing between them and God. Legal cohabitiation is a societal thing. While society may share interests in "marriage" with religion they are seperate. A marriage license is a act of the state. You need no permission from God to get married and you don't need a religious "license" to do so either. It's a good idea to ask her Dad though. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-04 8:06:00 AM |
| #5 I disagree with you Sock, Its not a religious thing. Its a cultural and social thing, and I think one that is pretty important for the continued existence of any society or culture. But, as its implimentation has been performed traditionally by churches, its easy to see how most folks would think it is religious in nature. When you marry, you are in essence entering into an agreement with the rest of society. So, it makes sense that society will set up some mechanism that records and recognizes those agreements. I am not seeing why it bothers you to do the paperwork. (Well other than the general thing about paperwork, which I share.) |
| Posted by: Ben 2004-11-04 7:55:08 AM |
| #4 Okay, so is anyone saying that it was Karl Rove who got this thing going? That Rove got the Mass. Supremes to rule the way they did, and thus helped Bush win the White House? Or will the liberal left finally admit they screwed up big time, by taking the issue through the courts, rather than through the ballot boxes? |
| Posted by: Ben 2004-11-04 7:51:30 AM |
| #3 Whatever caused them to come out and vote against Kerry who supports "gay marriage" is good to go with me. I don't support "gay marriage" either. I also am a libertarian and I have no problem with legal contracts or "civil unions" that give rights to inheritance and some legal benefits like fair tax rates to gays who enter into a "contract." Marriage is a religious thing. The State should stay out of "marriage." Oh yea I should mention I sometimes marry folks and it irks me to have to send the paperwork to the county clerk after I marry them. The clerk should issue a license and that is that. They shouldn't need to have me or a "judge" perform a ceremony. They should only have to do that if they want to. The state can stay out of my religion and morality. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-04 7:47:16 AM |
| #2 I heard the same thing: Ohio Republican rural voters that otherwise wouldn't have come out to vote for Bush came out to vote in a gay-marriage ban, and voted for Bush as an afterthought. Mrs. Du-Toit wrote a scathing post lecturing the gays for jumping the gun AND not waiting on public opinion to change in their favor. by opting instead to force the issue down their throats via the court system, she said they would reap the whirlwind. Looks like she was right. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-11-04 5:45:34 AM |
| #1 Hold on here. I'm a libertarian - well a utilitarian, but the difference is fairly arcane - the issue with Gay marriage is not what adults do for their own pleasure - that's entirely their business - but what governments legislate to encourage/discourage for the public good. The issue is whether gay 'marriage' increases the public good (at least as much as hetero marriage). That is the debate and to pretend otherwise is a profound dishonesty. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-04 5:35:27 AM |