All the cool people want it! All the young people want it! The majority of Americans want it! The momentum is unstoppable! It's inevitable!
How many times have you heard that in the debate about the neutering (abolishing) of state marriage licenses? Eager to advance the replacement of marriage with a a counterfeit, in-the-tank reporters and Leftist advocacy groups have touted polling that, according to them, shows a strong majority of Americans on their side of the issue.
However, if it was really true, they'd simply neuter marriage nationwide through direct popular votes on the state level, at least in states that have direct voting, and through state legislature in the other states and Congress nationally. For all of their bluster, there has only ever been ONE state (Maine) that has initiated the neutering of their licenses through a direct vote of the people, and that was done in the November 2012 election. For the other eight states and Washington, D.C., the process was initiated by judicial activism or radical action by the state legislature. This whole thing was initiated through judicial activism. Unfortunately, some people do throw up their hands and bow down before such activism, or before the radical agenda of their state legislature. 41 of the 50 states do NOT have neutered licensing, and most of them have recently, strongly, affirmed marriage as a bride+groom union, many by popular vote.
In the last few weeks, there have been reports of various polls claiming that clear a majority of Americans support the neutering marriage and polls touted by marriage neutering advocates claiming that 49% of Americans support marriage neutering. I wasn't a math major at the university, but 49% is not a majority (unless marriage neutering advocates have been allowed to redefine the word "majority" like they have "marriage" in some places).
The truth?
You're being lied to by marriage neutering advocates. Headlines about these polls are almost always highly misleading and the articles themselves may be misleading. When it comes to polling, the wording of the questions, the order of the questions, and who was polled, among other factors, can make a difference. At The Opine Editorials, we documented this repeatedly in our updates about poll dancing.
Even homofascist marriage neutering advocate blog Dog My Joe, by its own postings, admits this. A recent update there quoted Tony Perkins criticizing the Washington Post:
Civil unions are not marriage. Benefits can be provided through civil unions, domestic partnerships, or reciprocal beneficiaries agreements if DOMA is amended or replaced. Most Americans, including homosexual couples and people who find the idea of homosexuality disgusting or immoral, would support federal legistation or a Constitutional Amendment distingushing marriage from a nonmarital domestic partnership and would provide federal, state, and local government benefits through domestic partnerships. It is the radical Leftists and fringe marriqage neutering addvocates who wouldn't accept that model, because they are set on using the force of government to ban even any talk of there being a difference between marriage and a brideless or groomless pairing.
Counting support for benefits or civil unions as support for the neutering of marriage is like saying anyone who wants to protect the lactose intolerant want all milk replaced with water ...or appletinis.
If a poll refers to a "ban" of "same-sex unions" or supporting hate or anti-gay policies as the only alternative to neutering marriage, it isn't reliable. If if counts support of "equal rights" as support for neutering marriage, it isn't reliable. If a poll counts support for hospital visitations as support for neutering marriag, it isn't reliable.
I suspect that if Americans were polled with "Do you think there is no difference between a bride+groom pairing and a man+man or woman+woman pairing?" or "Do you think the ideal is for a child to have both a mother and father who are married to each other" the poll would "show", by the same logic the other side is using, that a strong majority of Americans support traditional marriage.
Here is the poll I would like to see, with questions posed in this order. These are "yes" or "no" questions.
1. Are you are aware that adults, regardless of sexual orientation, are allowed to live together without being married or being domestic partners?
2. Are you aware that adults, regardless of sexual orientation, are allowed to have commitment or marriage ceremonies regardless of whether or not they get a license from the state?
3. Are you aware that California's Domestic Partnership law allows same-sex couples to register as Domestic Partners?
4. Are you aware that California law treats Domestic Partners as spouses, as if they were married?
5. Would you support a similar or more limited nationwide Domestic Partnership recognition?
6. Do you believe that there is a difference between men and women? (If the answer is "no", ask respondent if they have dated both men and women, and then ask the question #6 again.)
7. Do you believe that the pairing of a man and a woman is different than the pairing of two men or two women? (If the answer is "no", ask respondent if any other kind of relationship other than the pairing of a man and woman can naturally produce children, and then ask question #7 again.)
8. Are you aware that the Supreme Court held in Baker v. Nelson that a state law denying same-sex couples a marriage license does not violate the U.S. Constitution?
9. Are you aware that in every state where the voters have voted on the issue until this past November, they have voted for the bride+groom requirement in state marriage licensing?
10. Are you aware that there has only been one state out of fifty where the bride+groom requirement was removed at the initiation of voters?
11. Are you aware that 41 of the 50 states have the bride+groom requirement as part of their constitution or other part of their law?
12. Are you are that the current federal law on marriage as bride+groom union was supported by Democrats as well as Republicans and signed into law by President Clinton?
13. a) Given that all laws treat different behaviors and kinds of associations differently, do you think it is okay for the law distinguish between relationships that unite a bride and a groom and other kinds of relationships? b) Are you aware that it would be impossible for the law to do so if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
14. a) Do you believe that, all other things being equal, adoption agencies should be able to give preference to placing children with a married man and woman, giving the child both a mother and a father, over placing that child with two men or two women? b) Are you aware that it would be difficult or nearly impossible for an adoption agency to do so if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
15. a) Do you believe that public schools should be able teach children that there is a difference between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual intercourse, and a difference between a brideless or groomless relationship and a marriage? b) Are you aware that it would be difficult or nearly impossible for a public school to teach there is a difference if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
16. Are you aware that none of the great moral thinkers or civil rights activists in history, all the way up through Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and none of the Founding Fathers or Presidents, all the way up until President Obama changed his position, ever claimed there was a right for a brideless or groomless couple to be recognized as a marriage?
17. Do you personally believe that marriage unites a bride and a groom?
18. Are you aware that different states have different restrictions on marriage licensing, including different age requirements and different restrictions on whether first cousins are allowed to marry?
19. Given that state marriage licenses are issued on your behalf, isn't it better that if you live in a state that allow direct votes, that you be allowed to keep requirements, including the bride+groom requirement for such licensing, if that is how you voted?
20. Shouldn't Californians be allowed keep the bride+groom requirement for such licensing, which is how the people of California have twice voted, rather than having a federal court impose a new definition of marriage on them?
Is the wording of the poll biased? No more biased than some of the others.
When you hear that "support for gay marriage has never been higher" you have to keep this sort of thing in mind, including that fact that fifteen years ago, no government in the world recognized a brideless or groomless pairing as marriage. The default position is that marriage unites a bride and groom. If one person out of ten abandons this time-honored understanding, that's a "dramatic" shift of ten percent! If a second person agrees, then that shift has never been higher!
Have the marriage neutering advocates advance their cause? Of course they have. Often they've done it dishonestly or through toddler-like tantrums and personal emotional blackmail. Ultimately, though, support for keeping the bride+groom core in the legal description of marriage, or keeping marriage laws in line with reality in that respect, remains strong. If you understand marriage united the sexes and believe the best public policy is that the law reflect that, you are in good company with billions of other people.
How many times have you heard that in the debate about the neutering (abolishing) of state marriage licenses? Eager to advance the replacement of marriage with a a counterfeit, in-the-tank reporters and Leftist advocacy groups have touted polling that, according to them, shows a strong majority of Americans on their side of the issue.
However, if it was really true, they'd simply neuter marriage nationwide through direct popular votes on the state level, at least in states that have direct voting, and through state legislature in the other states and Congress nationally. For all of their bluster, there has only ever been ONE state (Maine) that has initiated the neutering of their licenses through a direct vote of the people, and that was done in the November 2012 election. For the other eight states and Washington, D.C., the process was initiated by judicial activism or radical action by the state legislature. This whole thing was initiated through judicial activism. Unfortunately, some people do throw up their hands and bow down before such activism, or before the radical agenda of their state legislature. 41 of the 50 states do NOT have neutered licensing, and most of them have recently, strongly, affirmed marriage as a bride+groom union, many by popular vote.
In the last few weeks, there have been reports of various polls claiming that clear a majority of Americans support the neutering marriage and polls touted by marriage neutering advocates claiming that 49% of Americans support marriage neutering. I wasn't a math major at the university, but 49% is not a majority (unless marriage neutering advocates have been allowed to redefine the word "majority" like they have "marriage" in some places).
The truth?
You're being lied to by marriage neutering advocates. Headlines about these polls are almost always highly misleading and the articles themselves may be misleading. When it comes to polling, the wording of the questions, the order of the questions, and who was polled, among other factors, can make a difference. At The Opine Editorials, we documented this repeatedly in our updates about poll dancing.
Even homofascist marriage neutering advocate blog Dog My Joe, by its own postings, admits this. A recent update there quoted Tony Perkins criticizing the Washington Post:
"The Washington Post thought it knew where the American people stood on marriage. Just two days ago, news outlets were plastering its poll results of 'record' backing for same-sex 'marriage' on their websites--only to see the support vanish as quickly as it appeared. Today, the Reuters Corporation released the results of an even bigger poll than the Post's and found that only 41% of America supports the case being made by Ted Olson and David Boies at the Supreme Court. In an astonishingly large survey sample, 24,455 people (23,000 more than the Washington Post's survey!), barely four out of 10 Americans thought homosexuals should be allowed to 'marry.'Then the hateful homofascist blogger notes:
"Those numbers are far and away more consistent with the findings of trustworthy survey houses in the last few months on marriage. It also shows the unreliability of the media's polling. In 48 hours, we've seen a 17-point swing in public opinion on marriage. Of course, as we mentioned yesterday, the Post's questions were specifically structured to generate a more favorable response. When you frame the debate as the Post did--in criminal terms--Americans are far more wary of opposing same-sex 'marriage'.
Here's what that Reuters survey actually says:Emphasis mine. The tireless propagandist displays the fault reasoning being used:
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said married gay and lesbian couples should be able to qualify for Social Security survivor payments and other benefits provided to married heterosexual couples, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling of 2,886 people between March 5 and March 14. Reuters/Ipsos poll of 24,455 people between January 1 and March 14 found only a quarter of Americans opposed same-sex marriage or civil unions, although there were deep regional differences of opinion. Overall, that Reuters poll found 63 percent supported gay marriage or civil unions, with 41 percent of people saying same-sex couples should be permitted to marry.
Since you can't get federal benefits without marriage, the real result of the Reuters survey is that 55% figure, which almost exactly matches the 58% reported by the Washington Post.Supporting civil unions and/or providing federal benefits to same-sex couples and to support is NOT the same thing as wanting the Supreme Court of the United States to neuter state marriage licensing nationwide & completely strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (widely backed by Democrats and signed into law by President Clinton) nor wanting SCOTUS to invent a fundamental "right" to a neutered "marriage" license from the state.
Civil unions are not marriage. Benefits can be provided through civil unions, domestic partnerships, or reciprocal beneficiaries agreements if DOMA is amended or replaced. Most Americans, including homosexual couples and people who find the idea of homosexuality disgusting or immoral, would support federal legistation or a Constitutional Amendment distingushing marriage from a nonmarital domestic partnership and would provide federal, state, and local government benefits through domestic partnerships. It is the radical Leftists and fringe marriqage neutering addvocates who wouldn't accept that model, because they are set on using the force of government to ban even any talk of there being a difference between marriage and a brideless or groomless pairing.
Counting support for benefits or civil unions as support for the neutering of marriage is like saying anyone who wants to protect the lactose intolerant want all milk replaced with water ...or appletinis.
If a poll refers to a "ban" of "same-sex unions" or supporting hate or anti-gay policies as the only alternative to neutering marriage, it isn't reliable. If if counts support of "equal rights" as support for neutering marriage, it isn't reliable. If a poll counts support for hospital visitations as support for neutering marriag, it isn't reliable.
I suspect that if Americans were polled with "Do you think there is no difference between a bride+groom pairing and a man+man or woman+woman pairing?" or "Do you think the ideal is for a child to have both a mother and father who are married to each other" the poll would "show", by the same logic the other side is using, that a strong majority of Americans support traditional marriage.
Here is the poll I would like to see, with questions posed in this order. These are "yes" or "no" questions.
1. Are you are aware that adults, regardless of sexual orientation, are allowed to live together without being married or being domestic partners?
2. Are you aware that adults, regardless of sexual orientation, are allowed to have commitment or marriage ceremonies regardless of whether or not they get a license from the state?
3. Are you aware that California's Domestic Partnership law allows same-sex couples to register as Domestic Partners?
4. Are you aware that California law treats Domestic Partners as spouses, as if they were married?
5. Would you support a similar or more limited nationwide Domestic Partnership recognition?
6. Do you believe that there is a difference between men and women? (If the answer is "no", ask respondent if they have dated both men and women, and then ask the question #6 again.)
7. Do you believe that the pairing of a man and a woman is different than the pairing of two men or two women? (If the answer is "no", ask respondent if any other kind of relationship other than the pairing of a man and woman can naturally produce children, and then ask question #7 again.)
8. Are you aware that the Supreme Court held in Baker v. Nelson that a state law denying same-sex couples a marriage license does not violate the U.S. Constitution?
9. Are you aware that in every state where the voters have voted on the issue until this past November, they have voted for the bride+groom requirement in state marriage licensing?
10. Are you aware that there has only been one state out of fifty where the bride+groom requirement was removed at the initiation of voters?
11. Are you aware that 41 of the 50 states have the bride+groom requirement as part of their constitution or other part of their law?
12. Are you are that the current federal law on marriage as bride+groom union was supported by Democrats as well as Republicans and signed into law by President Clinton?
13. a) Given that all laws treat different behaviors and kinds of associations differently, do you think it is okay for the law distinguish between relationships that unite a bride and a groom and other kinds of relationships? b) Are you aware that it would be impossible for the law to do so if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
14. a) Do you believe that, all other things being equal, adoption agencies should be able to give preference to placing children with a married man and woman, giving the child both a mother and a father, over placing that child with two men or two women? b) Are you aware that it would be difficult or nearly impossible for an adoption agency to do so if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
15. a) Do you believe that public schools should be able teach children that there is a difference between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual intercourse, and a difference between a brideless or groomless relationship and a marriage? b) Are you aware that it would be difficult or nearly impossible for a public school to teach there is a difference if the legal definition of marriage is changed to any two people instead of a man and a woman?
16. Are you aware that none of the great moral thinkers or civil rights activists in history, all the way up through Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and none of the Founding Fathers or Presidents, all the way up until President Obama changed his position, ever claimed there was a right for a brideless or groomless couple to be recognized as a marriage?
17. Do you personally believe that marriage unites a bride and a groom?
18. Are you aware that different states have different restrictions on marriage licensing, including different age requirements and different restrictions on whether first cousins are allowed to marry?
19. Given that state marriage licenses are issued on your behalf, isn't it better that if you live in a state that allow direct votes, that you be allowed to keep requirements, including the bride+groom requirement for such licensing, if that is how you voted?
20. Shouldn't Californians be allowed keep the bride+groom requirement for such licensing, which is how the people of California have twice voted, rather than having a federal court impose a new definition of marriage on them?
Is the wording of the poll biased? No more biased than some of the others.
When you hear that "support for gay marriage has never been higher" you have to keep this sort of thing in mind, including that fact that fifteen years ago, no government in the world recognized a brideless or groomless pairing as marriage. The default position is that marriage unites a bride and groom. If one person out of ten abandons this time-honored understanding, that's a "dramatic" shift of ten percent! If a second person agrees, then that shift has never been higher!
Have the marriage neutering advocates advance their cause? Of course they have. Often they've done it dishonestly or through toddler-like tantrums and personal emotional blackmail. Ultimately, though, support for keeping the bride+groom core in the legal description of marriage, or keeping marriage laws in line with reality in that respect, remains strong. If you understand marriage united the sexes and believe the best public policy is that the law reflect that, you are in good company with billions of other people.
Fox News, which is about as far from Leftist advocacy as you can get, just released their own poll, showing "that 49 percent of voters favor legalizing gay marriage, while 46 percent oppose it."
ReplyDeleteAnd there was no trick question. It was, plainly:
"Do you favor or oppose legalizing same-sex marriage?"
A similar Fox News poll showed only 32% in favor in 2003, with 58% opposed.
You can try to explain that trend away, but that won't make it go away.
"Legalizing" implies it is illegal now to have a ceremony and live together. Yes, some people will think that when they hear the question.
Delete