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Vermont Same Sex Marriage Bill In Trouble, Iowa Ruling Due (UPDATED
The Vermont House today held a preliminary vote to approve the same sex marriage bill but it did not pass by a two thirds majority. The vote was 92-52 or 3 votes short of a 2/3 majority (It would have needed 95 votes of those cast or 100 of the total House membership of 150).
If the bill does not pick up those extra votes then a veto threat by Governor Jim Douglas could kill the bill. But as many as 11 Democrats who voted against the bill said they would vote to override a veto. Thata would give them over 100 votes.
On another note, The Iowa Supreme Court will issue its same sex marriage ruling tomorrow (Friday)
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6 Responses to “Vermont Same Sex Marriage Bill In Trouble, Iowa Ruling Due (UPDATED”
The People have spoken..
“The People have spoken..”
Huh? You mean the politicians have spoken. And they have voted to ensure that the people don't get to speak. Let's hope that they're unable to override the veto!
You can't get 2/3 of the people to agree they want the sun to come up tomorrow.
Why are social conservatives even bothering to fight this issue anymore? Unless they can come up with a more coherent plan than Praying for Homosexuals to Just Go Away, it's pretty obvious they're going to lose decisively and permanently over the next decade. All they're doing at this point is making their grandchildren's embarrassment more acute.
Social conservatives are continuing to fight this issue because we realize that sexuality is learned around the first few orgasms with classical conditioning. And that this conditioning is influenced by contemporary social mores. There is an excellent study done that illustrates that here: http://www-psychology.concordia.ca/fac/pfaus/Pf…
Also there is an entire industry, the artificial insemination industry in agriculture that recognizes, indeed banks on the fact that as mammals mature around puberty their sexual preference can be easily trained to same-sexed animals or inanimate objects. And once this association is made with orgasm, the animal will often only prefer that stimuli to acheive climax from then on, even when before training it preferred the opposite gender.
Human behavioralists may refuse to look at this longstanding industry's findings in favor of political correctness, but that doesn't lessen truth's impact on human society. If you accept that sexual preference is fixated around puberty, and that social mores at the time can affect partner selection, you have to accept that normalizing homosexuality or other deviant sexuality via society's stamp of “marriage”, will set up conditions for increases in the homosexual population of humans over time. For some this isn't a problem at all. In the majority of the voting public, this is a problem. We are a democracy and hence the reason I said, “The People have spoken”. For indeed they have in CA at least and should have a chance to do so across the nation on the matter.
All that aside there then is the sticky wicket of setting precident for polygamy; which is a reality once deviants acheive the stamp of “normalcy” [in marriage] via “love” between adults being the qualifier. The number “two” will cease to have meaning then and will be arbitrary, just as deviants are arguing at this very moment that the word “marriage” is arbitrary and therefore every adult “pair” who wants it should have it.
“marriage” really has no meaning other than a goal for society to shoot for. Of course there will always be exceptions and we should show compassion to those fixated in puberty towards deviant sexuality…because after that crucial period, evidence shows they really do not have a choice. But to set those deviations as normal sets up a whole host of social problems outlined above and the word “normal” ceases to have meaning.
There are many other ripples in the pond normalizing deviant sexuality will cause. What will we tell our youth is “normal bodily function” when it comes to gross exceptions in the reproductive organs? Will it be OK to smoke? Any teenager worth his rebellious salt will see the flaw in an argument that says “misusing the body's normal functions to acheive momentary pleasure like smoking does is wrong”. Get it? If you dont' get it, you shouldn't be weighing in on the matter.
It's helpful to understand that humans are primates, that we are malleable learners and our fixations are postponed until adolescence is done. Any undue influence, like normalized deviant sexuality, on fledgling adolesecents has no other predicted outcome but an increase in the deviant sexual population. If the majority of People are OK with that then fine. If not, we should preserve the conservative description of marriage as the goal to shoot for.
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Silhouette, I'm happy to suppose you're right, that conventional wisdom about homosexuality is wrong and that setting up the right conditions around puberty would turn everyone straight.
My point remains: conservatives are not on a course that can get them what they want. The strategy of making life as miserable as possible for adult gays isn't working and can't work, because millions of gay people can't simply go away.
Moreover, conservatives haven't articulated what these magic conditions around puberty might be. Hostility toward homosexuality has been tried and failed to prevent large numbers of people from turning out gay.