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Arkansas: Fear Teh Gay
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008Yesterday, 57 percent of Arkansas voters decided that the state’s 9,000 children in foster care are better off there than adopted by a gay couple.
21 Responses to “Arkansas: Fear Teh Gay”
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Makes this day pretty bittersweet for this lesbian adoptive mom….
But how ’bout our Indiana, Radley??? In Hancock County, almost 12,000 people voted for a Black man… Who woulda thunk it?
Best,
Marta
Not looking good for California.
I’m for separation of marriage and state. If government doesn’t control marriage, nobody can vote for who you can’t marry, right? This irrational fear of gays is one of many, many issues that cause me to question the competence of anyone to vote on anything.
Rick, I agree with the separation of marriage and state. I think the best solution for the USA is a European model, with civil unions (the contract with the state) for everyone, gay and straight, and marriage (the covenant with God) consecrated by faith communities, who can define and restrict it however they want.
Best,
Marta
My God I need to leave the South. Goodbye, Dirty, Dirty. Hello, Free State.
Marta-
I understand what you’re saying, but ‘contract’ implies ‘obligation’ and I’m just at a loss for why the citizen or the state should be under obligation when it comes to someone’s domestic arrangement. This is horribly entangled and I see it as another reason (opportunity?) to begin removing the state’s tentacles from our private lives and for us not to be on the hook for each others’ domestic arrangements.
To me, the best arrangement is to have the state leave it alone completely.
According to what I read, the ban technically applies to opposite sex as well as same sex couples. How would you even enforce this? Basically no single person may adopt, unless they *don’t* have a open, healthy sexual relationship with another adult.
You can’t separate marriage from state, it’s a legal contract bound by the laws of… the state.
You can separate marriage from religion, though. As far as the state (Which is the controlling legal entity) is concerned, it’s irrelevant whether your marriage came from some guy in a robe or a clerk at the county court house.
The problem arises when people actually believe that some fictional character ‘approved’ of their marriage, and doesn’t ‘approve’ of the marriages of other people, even though both marriages carry equal weight legally.
Marty, I too have long thought the state should get out of the domestic partnership business entirely. I’m not a libertarian, and I do think government has a role to play in supporting and sustaining individuals and families (although not necessarily the role Old Left liberals envision), but it’s never made sense to me that any particular arrangement should be privileged over any other, as long as they are among consenting adults (I even wrote a paper about this in law school, when Hawaii was poised to become the first state to legalize gay marriage). But this conversation strikes me as a bit ivory towerish, while the civil union/religious marriage solution strikes me as a) better than what we’ve got now (at least if you’re gay) and b) possible.
Best,
Marta
Yesterday, like any election day, was a great day for slavery and a bad day for freedom.
Congratulations on re-electing the government, voters!
Like Chance said, no UNMARRIED person or couple, be it heterosexual or homosexual, may adopt in Arkansas. The law is not anti-gay couple, it’s just pro conservative-think (thinking that a kid is better off with the state than a loving person who will care for him/her but is not married and, therefore, has no values to pass along).
It’s a dumb law.
Cynical,
We are of like mind.
I’m all for people marrying any one they want,as long as we rid the tax code of deductions for marriage and free income[health insurance}.I’ve always seen this as a economic,not civil rights,issue.
Rick,
I don’t think it’s that simple. People always say that the state “rewards” marriage by giving married couples privileges (inheritence rights, hospital visitation etc.), but I think it’s just that the state recognizes the reality that marriage is the creation of a familial bond between two people which necesitates legal protection and privileges similar to the ones enjoyed by parents/children and siblings.
In that sense, I think it’s very clear cut that the law needs to recognize marriage, i.e. not treat a married couple as though they were strangers. Once you do this, then the question becomes whether you will allow the same recognition for gay couples. So its not as easy as saying the gov should just stop dealing with the idea of marriage altogether.
This vote is an embarrassment for the state of AK, and I shall now feel free to perpetuate every stereotype about people that come from that crappy state.
As an anedote, I know a lesbian woman who has adopted 2 children (first a young boy and then his little sister) with her partner. She is a great person and, by the look of it, a fantastic parent and those kids are so lucky to have her in their lives. Sad.
On a positive note, citizens here in MA voted to decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana! Yay!
Marriage laws are not designed to be in anyone’s favor, gay or straight. The first gay couple that has a nasty divorce where they both spend all their money on divorce lawyers will learn a very harsh lesson about the marriage laws in the US.
I personally believe everyone is better off not getting a marriage license. Be with someone forever if you want, but having to get a license from the government to essentially prove that you are a really in love is insulting to everyone.
It’s “teh ghey”, Radley. Get it right!
Wow. I posted my comment in the Flake thread and now I come over here and people are discussing exactly the thing I mentioned.
Amen Mattocracy.
Thanks Thomas, individualists like us have to stick together.
/irony
I’ve been having an email debate with a Cally friend of mind who I just found out was “Born Again”, about this very thing. My argument for getting the state out of marriage all together is that once the gov’t gets involved then you have discussions about “why straights and not gays?” “why gays and not polygamous people” “why polygamous and not brother/sister”. They are all citizens and pay taxes why should they be left out?
When the state is out of the equation the “slippery-slope” arguement against gay marriage is left mute.
If the state is removed it is left to religious institutions to decide the approval of these relationships. Non-religious people can develop a contractual agreement about their monogamous or non-monagamous relationships, can have commitment ceremonies-which would be more of a civil union and not marriage.
But hey, at least they passed a lottery amendment.
I’m proud to be from Arkansas. The further away I get, the prouder I am.
There are some circumstances where it would be reasonable for a child to be adopted into something other than a married couple (with a male husband and female wife). If, for example, the only relative or relatives of an orphan who want to adopt him/her are not married, the fact that they aren’t married shouldn’t preclude them from adopting. On the other hand, I would suggest that the benefit to a child of having a mother (female) and father (male) is sufficient that such couples should be awarded substantial priority when seeking to adopt.