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11/26/2012
This is that one where Star Parker unwittingly argues our position rather than her own
Marriage equality advocates are no fans of voting on that particular right. The only state where we have proactively gone to the ballot is Maine, and that's only because we had already passed a marriage bill three years prior and so were simply taking back what the other side took away from us at the ballot. In every instance other than that one unique case, marriage voting has been the exclusive territory of social conservatives who want to either take away or stop same-gender couples from having the right.
So it's pretty funny to hear a hardcore social conservative like Star Parker reacting to our recent wins at the ballot box by
condemning the very concept of voting on marriage rights:
In the 1850s, Stephen Douglas proposed solving the dilemma of whether slavery should be permitted in new states by suggesting that they should just vote. What could be more American than submitting the question of slavery to the democratic process of each state? To this Abraham Lincoln observed: "God did not place good and evil before man telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death …. I should scarcely wish so strong a prohibition against slavery in Nebraska." Lincoln's rejoinder to the idea of "popular sovereignty" -- that states should vote to determine if slavery would be legal -- was that there are core truths -- truths that define right and wrong, good and evil -- that precede the democratic process. To reject this premise is to buy into moral chaos. Which is what we are approaching today. The claim that somehow it is a sign of a healthy, free society that by way of the vote we can rewrite our language, our dictionary, our oldest, time-tested traditions is a sign of how lost we are. [ONN]
Now, of course Parker puts her modern movement on the same moral plane as the abolition of slavery, so her intention is to say that *not* voting in slavery is the equivalent of not allowing marriage equality for same-sex couples. But most people, fortunately, do not see it like Parker. Most people understand that LGBT people are a historically shunned population and that the modern conversation about marriage rights is one involving decent treatment under the law. Even many people who still stop short of granting same-gender couples the marriage right understand that this is something other than a "good and evil" conversation.
So if now, in their time of loss, the social conservatives want to help us make some key points about why we really shouldn't be voting on a minority population's right? Well okay, fine. I'll just step out of the way and go play Angry Birds or something.
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