Chad’s Top 10 Reasons to Vote YES on Prop 8
With just a couple of weeks until we vote I thought I would share with you why I would vote yes on prop 8. From the various thoughts and opinions that have been published, these are the 10 that resonate most with me. If you would like to read more articles that have been well researched and very well written visit WhatIsTheHarm.org.
- Voice of the People: Our founders fought for certain principles of government that would protect the people and make us truly free. One of those principles, self-government, which means that the government shall operate by the consent of the governed, was grossly violated by 4 judges. They took on a kingly role by imposing values on the people of California. They took our rights away when they discounted our right to vote and the results of that vote in 2000. Since when do judges define our values? They don’t. The people do. Voting “Yes” on prop 8 restores that vote and sends a message to abusers of power that the government is only a steward to the people.
- Tolerance: Tolerance actually opposes same-sex marriage. Where same-sex marriage is legalized, tolerance is restricted. Freedom of religion is undermined, and freedom of speech is curtailed. Children in public schools are taught not true tolerance but the moral relativism of equivalency, i.e. that different forms of human sexuality are no more than matters of personal preference. Disagreement with this “principle” is not tolerated. A yes on prop 8 still provides tolerance for homosexuals through domestic partnerships and other means.
- The Mine field of unintended consequences: In states and nations where same-sex marriage has been legalized, the public commitment to families and conjugal marriage and families is significantly weakened. Adoption has been impaired. Mothers are marginalized, and social support for them weakens. Sexualization of society increases. Public support for marital parenting wanes. Marital childbearing and childrearing drop, and public education becomes more propagandistic.
- The rights of Children: Children, society’s most voiceless and vulnerable group, have rights that should be defended. Consider the following quotes from a liberal democrat in favor of prop 8. (read his entire article)
Marriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood — biological, social and legal — into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.
Marriage is society’s most pro-child institution. In 2002 — just moments before it became highly unfashionable to say so — a team of researchers from Child Trends, a nonpartisan research center, reported that “family structure clearly matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”
For these reasons, children have the right, insofar as society can make it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. This human right, concerning children, protects those who are typically society’s most voiceless and vulnerable group.
Do you think that every child deserves his mother and father, with adoption available for those children whose natural parents cannot care for them? Do you suspect that fathers and mothers are different from one another? Do you imagine that biological ties matter to children? In making the case for same-sex marriage, more than a few grown-ups will be quite willing to question your integrity and goodwill. Children, of course, are rarely consulted.
I believe with all my heart in the right of the child to the mother and father who made her, I believe that we as a society should seek to maintain and to strengthen the only human institution — marriage — that is specifically intended to safeguard that right and make it real for our children.
- The rights of parents: We have already seen troubling rights violations in Massachusetts and California where parents rights to teach moral values are taken away and given to the state. Its another example of imposing values on society by a kingly government instead of by the consent of the parents.
- First Amendment Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…” This right safeguards the people from lifestyle preferences that they disagree with and no law should be created that would infringe upon those rights. When the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June, it stipulated that same-sex couples can’t force religious organizations to marry them against the organization’s faith beliefs. Does that mean that members of those organizations are also guaranteed the free exercise of those faith beliefs without discrimination? Growing evidence says “no” as businesses, schools and individuals are being sued for exercising those beliefs. To read some of those situations click here.
- Not a Civil Rights Issue: Marriage is defined to serve the public interest, not private special interests or civil rights. Marriage is a public institution, not a mere private arrangement to bind romantic interests. The law allows many private relations organized and defined as the private parties wish, but the institution of marriage between a man and a woman exists and is protected by law to promote fundamental social needs, including the perpetuation of society as well as the necessary link between husbands and wives and between parents and children for critical social needs. Not civil rights video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ft2TX_QklM
- Equality does not require treating different relationships the same. Same-sex marriage advocates purport to desire “equal treatment” with heterosexual couples, but it is inequality to give full marital status to relationships that are so markedly different in lifestyle and social impact.
- State Intrusion into the family: It has become fashionable to believe that marriage and children share only an incidental connection. I disagree: (full article)
Marriage is, according to many intellectuals and jurists, first and foremost about the companionate and emotional needs of consenting adults.
For this reason, it is contended that the rules governing marriage laws should be purged of any expectation that children are begotten from adult sexual unions. If marriage and children are to become as severable as the “companionate” view of marriage suggests, then it follows that there increasingly ought to be no expectation that parental responsibilities flow from adult sexual relations.
As the state undermines the duty-based and child-focused nature of marriage, it increases the likelihood that marital duties, especially to children, will be abdicated and that adults will place their sexual desires above their responsibilities to their children.
This redefinition of marriage moves more toward serving the needs of adults, not children, which will naturally invite, over time, greater state intrusions into family life.
- The issue is about Marriage:I have heard a few uneducated people say that they believe that those that are for Prop 8 are fueled by bigotry. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The issue is about marriage, children and our principles of government. While I don’t necessarily like any of our choices for president right now, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain and Sarah Palin all agree that SSM should not be legalized. Interesting to think that this maybe one of the only issues that they unanimously agree upon.
Those are my Top 10. Feel free to comment away.
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Well done Chad, I think #4 is the most poignant to me, as the consequences of this vote lay with the generations of our born/unborn children.