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Orson Scott Card is a Bigoted Dickhead
Newsflash, Orsie: Marriage is not just a religious blessing, but a legal contract. Same-sex couples getting their 14th amendment rights respected does nothing to change the religious blessing aspect.
I am SO tired of people using their religion as an excuse to discriminate against others. If I joined a religion that said people with blonde hair couldn't use public drinking fountains, I would have no right to try to force the laws of the US to deny that public access right to blondes.
The constitution guarantees equal protection. That means all rights and benefits accorded to one citizen have to be accorded to all citizens, so long as they have not forfeited those rights by committing a crime which violates the rights of another to life, liberty or property. Just as a person should not be forced to marry, say, a blonde in order to get the benefits of marriage, neither should they be forced to marry someone they're not in love with.
I hate to say it, but Card's stance on this obviously stems from the teachings of his Church, which emphasize that marriage is about procreation and family, and that sex is something that should be avoided unless you're trying to have kids. (They push for people to have children rather than marriage descending into childless, sex-focused debauchery.) His religious convictions have taught him that sex is inherently sinful, and therefore is not something which should be taken into consideration as a part of a loving adult relationship. Therefore the concept that one should be sexually compatible with one's spouse is completely irrelevant. Sex is simply a means to an end-- procreation-- and not an end of itself, and so therefore, like any other duty in life, it's just something you do to fulfill your obligations as a good church member. You don't have to like it, just like you don't have to like going to work to pay your bills.
But what he's missing is that that is *his religion's* definition of marriage, not the legal one. The fact that his religion believes that church-blessed marriages are for raising children is irrelevant to the legal definition of marriage which is simply two people who have chosen to legally bind themselves to each other. In fact, legal marriage is more properly thought of as two adults "adopting" each other, with all the civil benefits and responsibilities that would go along with that. Requiring someone to marry a certain person or certain type of person to get those benefits is inherently unconstitutional. Denying two people the right to marry just because they have the same genitals and can therefore not biologically reproduce is just as unconstitutional as it would be to deny a couple who were infertile, or where one or both had a genital deformity which prevented "normal" sex, or who are too old to reproduce. You can't grant marriage only to people who have certain body parts any more than you can only grant it to people of a certain race.
Any public benefit or accomodation granted to one citizen has to be granted to all. It's that simple. Unless the government wants to get out of marriage entirely, it has to give the legal benefits of marriage to all its citizens and not play matchmaker.
Oh and the whole argument about the courts shouldn't be doing major social changes is absolute hogwash. First off this isn't a social change, it's acknowledging a social reality which has been in place for centuries. Gays didn't just suddenly spring up overnight, just like people of different races didn't just suddenly decide they wanted to marry each other in the 60's. And it's also not "changing' anything. It's simply abolishing unconstitutional laws about marriage which deny rights to certain people. It's not "legalizing" anything, it's simply getting rid of laws which are constitutionally invalid.
Newsflash, Orsie: Marriage is not just a religious blessing, but a legal contract. Same-sex couples getting their 14th amendment rights respected does nothing to change the religious blessing aspect.
I am SO tired of people using their religion as an excuse to discriminate against others. If I joined a religion that said people with blonde hair couldn't use public drinking fountains, I would have no right to try to force the laws of the US to deny that public access right to blondes.
The constitution guarantees equal protection. That means all rights and benefits accorded to one citizen have to be accorded to all citizens, so long as they have not forfeited those rights by committing a crime which violates the rights of another to life, liberty or property. Just as a person should not be forced to marry, say, a blonde in order to get the benefits of marriage, neither should they be forced to marry someone they're not in love with.
I hate to say it, but Card's stance on this obviously stems from the teachings of his Church, which emphasize that marriage is about procreation and family, and that sex is something that should be avoided unless you're trying to have kids. (They push for people to have children rather than marriage descending into childless, sex-focused debauchery.) His religious convictions have taught him that sex is inherently sinful, and therefore is not something which should be taken into consideration as a part of a loving adult relationship. Therefore the concept that one should be sexually compatible with one's spouse is completely irrelevant. Sex is simply a means to an end-- procreation-- and not an end of itself, and so therefore, like any other duty in life, it's just something you do to fulfill your obligations as a good church member. You don't have to like it, just like you don't have to like going to work to pay your bills.
But what he's missing is that that is *his religion's* definition of marriage, not the legal one. The fact that his religion believes that church-blessed marriages are for raising children is irrelevant to the legal definition of marriage which is simply two people who have chosen to legally bind themselves to each other. In fact, legal marriage is more properly thought of as two adults "adopting" each other, with all the civil benefits and responsibilities that would go along with that. Requiring someone to marry a certain person or certain type of person to get those benefits is inherently unconstitutional. Denying two people the right to marry just because they have the same genitals and can therefore not biologically reproduce is just as unconstitutional as it would be to deny a couple who were infertile, or where one or both had a genital deformity which prevented "normal" sex, or who are too old to reproduce. You can't grant marriage only to people who have certain body parts any more than you can only grant it to people of a certain race.
Any public benefit or accomodation granted to one citizen has to be granted to all. It's that simple. Unless the government wants to get out of marriage entirely, it has to give the legal benefits of marriage to all its citizens and not play matchmaker.
Oh and the whole argument about the courts shouldn't be doing major social changes is absolute hogwash. First off this isn't a social change, it's acknowledging a social reality which has been in place for centuries. Gays didn't just suddenly spring up overnight, just like people of different races didn't just suddenly decide they wanted to marry each other in the 60's. And it's also not "changing' anything. It's simply abolishing unconstitutional laws about marriage which deny rights to certain people. It's not "legalizing" anything, it's simply getting rid of laws which are constitutionally invalid.
