Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card has his secret Mormon holy underpants in a bunch over the idea of allowing gay people to marry. Marriage, that sacred holy union enjoyed by the likes of Britney Spears and Keven Federline and Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.
Orson Scott Card does not like gay marriage and he chose to argue his views in the pages of the Mormon Times. How brave of him.
Here is some of what Orson Scott Card had to say:
These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.
No, that’s not what is happening. Massachusetts and California Judges have ruled against laws that discriminate against gay people. That is what judges are supposed to do. They strike down laws that discriminate against people because of their race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation. It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters agreed to deny rights to gay people. There is a difference between a Democracy and mob rule.
Remember how rapidly gay marriage has become a requirement. When gay rights were being enforced by the courts back in the ’70s and ’80s, we were repeatedly told by all the proponents of gay rights that they would never attempt to legalize gay marriage.
It took about 15 minutes for that promise to be broken.
Who promised him that? It’s not that people want to legalize gay marriage. Those of us on the pro-gay marriage side just think that the government shouldn’t enact laws that make it illegal. There is a difference.
My wife and I enjoy the rights and privileges afforded to us because we are married. She is my legal next of kin and I am her’s. If I am ever in a life threatening accident and decisions have to be made concerning my care and treatment, not only will my wife be allowed to remain at my side, she will be allowed to make those decisions. The reason for this is because she and I are married.
This is only one of the many rights and privileges bestowed on married couples. Gay people in committed relationships love the person they are with just as much as I love my wife. Why should my wife and I get rights and privileges that committed gay couples don’t? I hate the fact that we deny this basic right to gay couples.
It’s embarrassing.
And for the record, if I am ever in a situation where my wife has to make a decision about my medical care, I want her to keep me alive any way that medical science allows. Not only do I want to be hooked up to machines, I want them to invent new machines just to keep me going. I want to live!
The choice is her’s though. She is my wife. She has earned the right to unplug me.
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3 Responses
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I, for one, will not tolerate being forced to marry a gay man!
Wait, you mean it’s not mandatory?
Anyway, this was obviously a statement from the EVIL Orson Scott Card. The real one has also been replaced by an evil replicant, so…
I can kinda see the argument that marriage is a religious concept and that gays should be allowed to enter into legal partnerships with all the benefits and protections of marriage without the “marriage” name. But I’m pretty sure that none of the anti-gay-marriage activists would even want to afford gay folks that much.
Marriage may be a religious concept to some, but it’s also a state-recognized partnership with certain benefits, as Rick enumerated up there. The only reason most opponents of gay marriage object to two men or two women being able to marry one another and enjoy those certain legal benefits is homophobia, which is a form of bigotry, just like racism or sexism.
We don’t tolerate those forms of bigotry, whether they have religious roots or not, and we shouldn’t tolerate anti-gay bigotry, either.
Judges that declare laws against gay marriage aren’t legislating from the bench or thwarting democracy — they’re doing their jobs by invalidating laws that discriminate. Discrimination based on prejudice is bad, see. And let’s not forget that it wasn’t a democratic uprising that brought down laws against interracial marriage, or desegregated schools. It was courts, acting responsibily, doing the right thing.