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04/11/2006
Defending marriage against aggressive 'marriage defender'
When we first saw that the Concerned Women For America's Robert Knight had posed the following question...
...our first instinct was to just simply respond...
However, upon reading every line and shaking our heads every 5 minutes at the far-fetched and just plain WRONG nature of Mr. Knights claims, we wanted to say more. Here's the inner monologue that spilled on the page as we read a few of duders statements:
You can no more leave an entire sex out of marriage and call it “marriage” than you can leave chocolate out of a “chocolate brownie” recipe. It becomes something else.
Yea, a blondie. But your clumsy comparison relies on the idea that everyone defines a brownie the same way you do. A more apt comparison would be to say that some folks are inclined to enjoy brownies with nuts, yet some find nuts too hairy salty. Yet the concept of a brownie, even with variances in certain ingredients, remains the same. If you want to use your Betty Crocker-based metaphor, the chocolate should really be "love" and the brownie "two persons."
As with any acquired status, the applicant must meet minimal requirements, which in terms of marriage, means finding an opposite-sex spouse. Same-sex partners do not qualify. To put it another way, clerks will not issue dog licenses to cats, and it is not out of “bigotry” toward cats.
That comparison is no more valid than saying a clerk won't issue a dog license to a human. Of course such a denial wouldn't be bigotry -- humans weren't born dogs (at least in the literal sense). We're not asking for the expansion of the law's parameters to allow for species metamorphosis; we'll leave that concept to the "ex-gay" programs you so fervently support.
Marriage was not – I repeat, not – invented to annoy and exclude homosexuals. Those who accuse marriage defenders of being “bigots” are engaging in name-calling, nothing more.
We're right there with you on the name-calling thing. However, your claim makes it seem that if one is opposed to the actions of folks like yourself, then they automatically fall into the "you're a bigot" camp. We've written probably 50 entries involving you, Mr. Knight -- never once have we called you a "bigot." But yet we think your daily work of opposing homosexuals at every turn is reprehensible beyond all belief. Not you, mind you -- your actions. Not to mention, if you want to play the "comparison of name-calling" game, many folks on your "pro-family" team have attacked homosexuals with every name in the book. I'm well aware that some on my side of the fence use language that is heated and at times too aggressive -- but when one is responding to claims that they are immoral and Hell-bound, it's quite easy to get feisty.
As for your other statement here -- we've also never once claimed marriage was "invented to annoy and exclude homosexuals." This is because...well, because we're not f***ing idiots. In case you haven't noticed -- WE WANT TO MARRY. BADLY. What annoys and excludes homosexuals in regards to marriage are the words and actions of folks like yourself, Knighter.
Comparing current laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman with the laws in some states that once limited inter-racial marriage is irrelevant and misleading. The very soul of marriage—the joining of the two sexes—was never at issue when the Supreme Court struck down laws against inter-racial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.
Exactly -- and "the very soul of marriage" is not at issue here. Again, you are relying on your own limited definition of marriage's core. You say it is one man, one woman. For those of us who know our inner truth was not designed for such an arrangement, yet would be willing to challenge any heterosexual couple in the nation to try and top the love we share with our same-sex partner, we see the major flaw in your argument. Since you want to talk about interracial marriage (which doesn't need a hyphen, by the way), Southern Christian Churches were THE MAJOR OPPONENTS of such a concept. We can only imagine that the "Concerned Women" of this day evoked many of the same far-fetched notions and claims that all too often permeate the attacks of same-sex nups.
Just a few thoughts. To read and form your own, the full of Mr. Knight's gay marriage condemnation (presented as written testimony to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee) can be found below:
When Did Defending Marriage Become an Act of Bigotry? [CWFA]
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